New York State Senate Republicans have spent months holding roundtable discussions and years reviewing criminal justice policy. On Tuesday, representatives spoke at the State Capitol, during National Crime Victims' Rights Week, to discuss their agenda and advocate for change in how the state handles criminal cases.
“The State of New York and lawmakers and policymakers don't seem to think about the other side of the coin once the crime is committed. The victim's forgotten, their families, their loved ones, they're forgotten," said Senator Dean Murray. "It's all about the criminal now, and it turns from justice to rehabilitation.”
Murray is one of several elected officials who have attended crime victim roundtables across the state, including one at Hilbert College in Hamburg in January. He and other Senate Republicans developed five bills — and continue to advocate for the passing of several existing bills — in response to policies they frame as pro-criminal.
Those bills are included in a package called the Victims First Agenda, which Murray says was created in response to learning firsthand the lasting impact of violent crime from conversations with victims and their families.
One of the bills introduced in the Victims First Agenda is Sarah’s Law, named for Sarah Goode, a 21-year-old Long-Island woman who was found dead in the woods in 2014 after being stabbed 42 times. Dante Taylor, the man convicted of raping and murdering Goode, committed suicide in prison in 2017 while serving life without parole. A legal doctrine called abatement ab initio — which vacates a conviction from the beginning if a defendant dies while their appeal is pending, allowed Taylor's first and second-degree murder charges, as well as a first-degree attempted rape charge, to be overturned.
"What does that say about our criminal justice system, if a technicality can undo an entire process while the truth remains undeniable? This did not just erase a conviction, it erased accountability. It erased justice, and it tried to erase Sarah," Jennifer Driver, Goode's Sister.
While speaking at the State Capitol, Driver and her other sister Tabitha Miller urged state leaders to pass Sarah's Law, which would reverse abatement ab initio.
“Victims of murder lost a huge piece of their world, and in our case, a little girl who lost her whole world– her mother, who will never be given a second chance," Miller said. "If you don't pass the law, you're telling her that her mother never meant anything, because you're choosing a murderer over her mother, who did not deserve to be murdered.”
Theresa Bliss became an advocate for policy change after her son David was murdered in 2021. She inspired a bill that would demand an annual report on perpetrators of fatal violent crimes, and she says she’s grateful that legislators are taking action on behalf of victims and their families.
“We were at the table, we were listened to, and what we had to say mattered, because being heard should never be optional. It should be the foundation of justice,” Bliss said.
Some other suggested reforms include moving cases of 16– to 18-year-olds from family court to adult criminal court if another serious felony is committed, clarification of New York State's statutes on strangulation and a comprehensive review of the New York State Sex Offender Registry.
The Victims First Agenda is expected to be released in late April or early May.
