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Family Court Updates
E-Filing in Family Court Expands Upstate
Electronic filing in family court expanded to several new upstate counties in July and August—litigants and attorneys in 34 counties can now e-file petitions and other documents in their family court cases. Counties that implemented new e-filing options this summer include Clinton, Essex, Hamilton, Washington, Franklin, Montgomery, St. Lawrence, and Warren counties. The initiative is anticipated to reduce geographic and financial barriers to accessing the courts in rural areas and address administrative burdens faced by attorneys practicing in northern New York. The court system has made trainings available for attorneys new to the e-filing system.
Appellate Division Finds Post-Dispositional Supervision of Non-Respondent Parent Unlawful
In Matter of L.M. (2026 NY Slip Op 05061), a decision issued on August 20, the First Department held that dispositional orders placing nonrespondent parents who have not been accused of any wrongdoing under broad CPS supervision are unlawful. The appellant in this case, a mother of three, reported domestic violence by her children’s father. In the resulting neglect case against the father, the mother was subjected to intrusive home visits, surveillance, and visits to her children’s school even after relocating to Florida. While recognizing that Family Court Act 1054 provides that a nonrespondent parent to whom children are released must submit to the court’s jurisdiction “to undertake certain actions with respect to the child released into their care to ensure their accessibility for services, appointments, visitation and the like,” the appellate division found the supervision conducted in this case to be a “broad overreach.” The court ruled on statutory grounds and did not reach appellant’s constitutional arguments. The oral argument can be viewed here at 2:20.
Defenders representing non-respondent parents should be prepared to object to dispositional orders authorizing broad CPS supervision of their clients. Defenders representing respondent parents should note that they may still seek court orders enforcing non-respondent parents’ obligations to make children available for visits and services under FCA 1054 when necessary. Recent case law also limits CPS’s authority to supervise nonrespondent custodial parents before disposition—defenders with questions about supervision of nonrespondent parents can contact the Backup Center (518-465-3524, info@nysda.org, or contact form) and consult ILS’ practice advisory. NYSDA members can also access our past CLE on this issue, Understanding Sapphire W. and its Impact on Parents.
Fourth Department Reminds that Family Courts May Not Merely Rubber Stamp Derivative Neglect Allegations
In Matter of Ty’Shawn B. (251 AD3d 1758), the Fourth Department reversed the family court’s grant of the petitioner’s motion for summary judgment in a derivative neglect case. In motions for summary judgment, the movant bears the initial burden of establishing that there are no material triable issues of fact, and that the movant is entitled to the relief sought as a matter of law. Although derivative neglect cases are often challenging to litigate, defenders should not hesitate to hold petitioners to their legal burden. To establish a prima facie case of derivative neglect, the initial finding of abuse or neglect must demonstrate such an impaired level of parental judgment as to create a substantial risk of harm for any child in the parent’s care and must be sufficiently proximate in time to enable the court to reasonably conclude that the condition still exists. In this case, the petitioner relied exclusively on a prior order of disposition, which stated only that the mother derivatively neglected three older children through inadequate guardianship that placed the children at risk of harm. The Fourth Department held that petitioner failed to meet its burden to establish the egregiousness of the respondent’s prior conduct or that the potential harm of that conduct could be said to reasonably still exist.
Even in derivative neglect or abuse cases where petitioners meet their prima facie burden, defenders have numerous options to mount defenses to motions for summary judgment or at trial. Respondents may prove that circumstances have changed since the initial abuse or neglect finding or that the allegedly derivatively neglected or abused children are differently situated, among other defenses. Defenders opposing motions for summary judgment or derivative neglect allegations are always welcome to contact the Backup Center for support (518-465-3524, info@nysda.org, or contact form).
Forensic Highlights
New Tool to Evaluate DNA Evidence is Misleading
Our National Forensic College colleagues recently published a commentary article in the Journal of Forensic Sciences. J.D. Schmid (Minnesota Board of Public Defense), Clinton Hughes (Brooklyn Defender Services), and Chase Baumgartner (Innocence Project of Texas) authored “Help v. harm: How a ‘lookup table’ for evaluating DNA evidence given activity-level propositions could lead to wrongful convictions.” The authors primarily discussed the flaws in a new tool—a lookup table—that was published in the Journal of Forensic Sciences. The span of the use of this lookup table is unclear, but it has been published by authors who are highly regarded in the government-centric forensic DNA analyst community of police and FBI labs (John Buckleton, Duncan Taylor, James Curran, Simone Gittelson, and Tim Kalafut). That fact, combined with the publication in the Journal of Forensic Sciences, could mean that this lookup table could be relied upon in labs as part of their DNA analysts’ training.
Cutting to the heart of the matter, the lookup table purports to help courts answer the question “How did the DNA get to where it was found?” by quantifying various propositions or scenarios represented by a likelihood ratio in a statistical analysis. The answer to that “how” question is called an activity level proposition. Traditionally, DNA analysts have answered the question “Who is the source of the DNA?” but authors of the lookup table and other leaders in the DNA analysis field are pushing to answer the ground truth question of how the DNA got there. Introducing this as evidence in court is problematic for the reasons Schmid et al. outlined.
The flawed lookup table is first limited by the authors’ failure to address whether their methods could aid courts in reaching the correct outcome in a criminal case, especially considering the majority of testifying DNA analysts work for the police and prosecution and are motivated to testify accordingly. The lookup table also fails to account for many variables like the DNA shedding status of the accused and environmental factors affecting the collection and analysis of DNA from a crime scene. Schmid et al. importantly highlighted a case study wherein a full profile of an innocent person was developed from DNA under a sexual assault victim’s fingernails; the two individuals shared the same blanket at different times at the same police station. This type of indirect transfer is real, and it is alarming that current DNA profiling methods are sensitive enough to detect this DNA transfer. Had the innocent accused person not had an exonerating alibi, he would have been tried and likely convicted. Using the lookup table with this scenario fails to account for that exonerating alibi and would lead the user of the table to a score in favor of the prosecution’s theory.
Quoting the authors, “The sensitivity of current DNA testing methods has increased the risk that innocently shed DNA recovered from a crime scene will contribute to miscarriages of justice.” Relying on flawed methods like this lookup table and purporting to know the answer to the question how the DNA got there can only enhance these miscarriages of justice. Clinton Hughes discussed his paper at NYSDA’s Fall Forensics Conference in his presentation, “Unlocking Scientific Articles & Challenging ‘Cops in Lab Coats’" on September 18.
Accountability and Oversight
Independent Report Examines Harms and Benefits of Kendra’s Law
Culminating a two-and-a-half-year project commissioned by the New York Legislature, a team of researchers published an independent evaluation of New York’s Assisted Outpatient Treatment (AOT) system. AOT is a legal framework for court-mandated treatment of individuals who meet the criteria set forth in Mental Hygiene Law 9.60. The report compared outcomes for people under AOT orders and participants in comparable voluntary services finding significant improvement for both groups in all measured areas including hospitalization rates, arrest rates, and housing status. Between the two groups, no significant difference was detected for four of nine measured outcomes; the AOT cohort fared better in three of the measured outcomes, including housing status; and the voluntary cohort fared significantly better in two of the outcomes, including arrest rates. For the areas where AOT appeared to outperform voluntary services, participants credited case management, housing services, and transportation included with the AOT order, and many said they would have voluntarily engaged in those services had they been offered.
New York’s Office of Mental Health touted the findings as a confirmation that “court-ordered mental health services improved outcomes for this small group of people who are at high risk of not being able to survive safely in their community and who would not accept services voluntarily.” The researchers, however, concluded the data did not support the assertion that people under an AOT order would not have voluntarily engaged in treatment without a court mandate. They also found that New Yorkers of color are subjected to AOT orders and removed to hospitals at a much higher rate than white New Yorkers.
The report highlighted systemic barriers to accessing voluntary services and widespread concerns by those involved in AOT about experiences of coercion, unfairness, and lack of agency. They concluded: “AOT’s primary positive impact lies in facilitating access to services,” and that enhancing access to voluntary services could produce similar outcomes without the associated harms.
HOPE First Provides Peer Support to Those in Need
Residents in need of support for a mental health crisis in a handful of zip codes in Rochester (14611, 14619, and 14608) can now call 585.837.HOPE for peer-led crisis response. Launched in June of this year, responders from HOPE (Healing, Outreach, and Peer Engagement) First Rochester are now available daily from 3pm – 11pm, including holidays. The peer-led crisis response teams aim to provide services and support related to mental and behavioral health crises, substance use, wellness checks, youth crises, elder concerns, and mutual aid to community members in need. The peer responders are people with lived experience who must undergo training to respond to and deescalate crisis situations without the use of police or law enforcement. The development of HOPE First was informed by Daniel’s Law and the Daniel’s Law Task Force report and is currently funded by the NYS legislature and outside grants and comes at a time when many cities and municipalities are developing and implementing crisis response teams. Many such teams remain in the purview of law enforcement, either directly or indirectly. What makes HOPE First unique is its complete independence from law enforcement agencies and peer-led teams.
New York City’s Surveillance Apparatus
The New York City government and the NYPD may be behind the latest national surveillance trend of Flock cameras, but this is perhaps because the city, always ahead of the curve, has been rapidly expanding its citizen surveillance apparatus for decades. A recent article published in New York Magazine provides a concise overview of the recent history and outcomes of NYC’s surveillance state. Between the current backlash against companies like Flock and with the start of 2026 supposedly representing the safest in NYC’s recorded history, NYPD Commissioner Tisch credits the city’s surveillance apparatus in part with these stats. As we in the criminal legal system are well aware, however, these surveillance techniques target vulnerable people, youth, and Black and Brown communities.
NYPD’s modern surveillance apparatus started back in 2005 under Mayor Bloomberg with the nation’s first real-time crime center merging information from security cameras and license plate readers. From this the Counterterrorism Bureau of the NYPD developed the Domain Awareness System (DAS), which is a searchable database with information from a wide variety of surveillance feeds, 911 calls, and police records. While DAS was initially confined to use in lower Manhattan, in 2012, with help from Microsoft, DAS expanded citywide.
With each subsequent mayor, the surveillance apparatus and DAS have grown to include more and more data and bigger technology. Under Mayor de Blasio, ShotSpotter alerts began routing to DAS. While under Mayor Adams, the NYPD’s use of drones, robots, and subway weapons scanners vastly expanded. In a seemingly beneficent move, the Adams administration initiated Big Apple Connect, a program providing free broadband service to communities living in public housing. A subsequent report by New York Focus revealed that the administration employed this system to connect to abandoned surveillance cameras, pouring the footage and information gleaned from them into DAS.
One of Mayor Mamdani’s campaign promises was calling for an end to the NYPD’s “gang database,” established in 2013 to track community members suspected of gang involvement by the NYPD—99% of whom are Black and Brown New Yorkers. He has since dialed back his promise to abolish the database, in favor of “reforming” it to provide more transparency. Thus far, Mamdani has been quiet as to DAS and other surveillance strategies employed by the NYPD’s mass surveillance apparatus; however, a lack of transparency in DAS, private camera systems, federal surveillance systems, etc. is the issue many critics point to along with a lack of hard data pointing to the real correlation between lower crime rates and surveillance.
While the rest of the country fights the use of Flock cameras and technology, for NYC, Flock is outdated at best. The NYPD’s seemingly endless coffer for new surveillance technology has created a city where nearly every move made by nearly every citizen (including those inside our apartments thanks to smart tv and gaming system technology) is tracked and maintained in some database. Is this what the rest of the country has to look forward to?
NYSACDL Calls on Commission on Prosecutorial Conduct to Make Determinations on Hundreds of Complaints
In August, the New York State Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NYSACDL) sent a letter to the New York State Commission on Prosecutorial Conduct (CPC) bemoaning the Commission’s lack of action. Since the CPC’s creation in 2021 they have only issued one recommendation in July 2025 against former District Attorney of Monroe County Sandra J. Doorley for off-duty conduct. That complaint was filed by Governor Kathy Hochul. “This lack of action is unconscionable given the stakes,” writes NYSACDL.
In response, CPC Administrator Susan Friedman told the New York Law Journal that the commission “currently has 22 active investigations involving 20 prosecutors.”
For more on the Commission’s contested creation and protracted implementation, please see the May 20, 2024 and August 15, 2025 editions of News Picks.
Immigration Updates
WNY RIAC Newsletter Covers SCOTUS Cases
The August issue of the Western New York Regional Immigration Assistance Center (WNY RIAC) focuses on two U.S. Supreme Court decisions affecting immigration law: Blanche v Lau and Mullin v Doe. The former case, which allows immigration officials at ports-of-entry to “determine whether a returning permanent resident has committed a CMT [crime involving moral turpitude] based on nothing more than an arrest,” was mentioned in the prior issue of the newsletter, as noted in News Picks of August 17th.
The Mullin v Doe decision, WNY RIAC notes, held “that the executive branch has broad, unreviewable authority over Temporary Protected Status designations,” and “effectively ended these protections for nationals of Haiti and Syria.” The newsletter references an explainer from the National Immigration Project about the decision’s effects.
September Newsletter Explains "Aggravated Felonies"
Crimes deemed “aggravated felonies” can drastically affect immigration consequences. The September issue of WNY RIAC’s newsletter explains the term and also reminds defenders that immigration law categorizes removable offenses in its own way, not necessarily distinguishing between felonies, misdemeanors, and violations the way New York criminal law does. Failure by defense counsel to accurately advise a client that pleading to a particular crime will bar defense to deportation constitutes ineffective assistance of counsel. See People v Alexander, 208 AD3d 1247 (2022).
The September newsletter also reports on an immigration decision that rejected a state sentence modification intended to avoid immigration consequences (Matter of Boye [29 I&N Dec. 826 {(BIA 2026}]) and on the deportation of people to countries other than the immigrant’s country of nationality.
NYSDA thanks WNY RIAC and the other RIACs, funded by the Office of Indigent Legal Services, for the assistance they provide. Defenders are reminded to ask all clients, “were you born in the United States” and to contact a RIAC whenever the answer is “no.” For more information, see the website, https://nyriac.com/.
Court System News
"Court Modernization” Report Suggests Rapid Expansion of Virtual Procedures in New York Courts
The Unified Court System’s Court Modernization Action Committee released a report on their “next steps to expand and enhance virtual proceedings, modernize technology and facilities, improve communication with court users, and strengthen access to justice.”
Included in the report are updates on e-filing, noting that more than 16.9 million documents were filed in 2025 and the number of family courts participating in e-filing doubled. Court modernization, which the committee now claims has resulted in almost all courtrooms being capable of “hybrid appearances.” And an additional 500 courtrooms being included in the New York Virtual Court Appearance Platform by the end of 2026.
The report also includes a set of recommendations, which lay out a far more aggressive implementation, including the expansion of virtual proceedings to “virtual jury selection and trials” and the “consideration of rule changes and supporting legislation to expand virtual appearances.” To bring “greater transparency,” the report suggests developing “guidelines for recording virtual proceedings as a potential supplement to the official record.” Others focus on communication, like sending text message appearance reminders in some Family Courts or assessing kiosk availability in correctional facilities.
In November 2022, NYSDA testified before the predecessor to the Court Modernization Action Committee, the Commission to Reimagine the Future of New York’s Courts --Pandemic Practices Working Group, about concerns regarding virtual proceedings and urged the Commission and the court system to start from the perspective of litigants whose lives and families are impacted by criminal and family court proceedings and ensure that the constitutional and statutory rights to due process, equal protection, and effective assistance of counsel are given precedence. Our written testimony is available here; a transcript of the hearing is available here (NYSDA’s testimony starts on p. 79).
New E-Filing Rules for District and City Courts Outside of NYC
The July 22 New York State Register adds a new Section 212.4-a for Electronic Filing in District Courts Outside the City of New York, and a Section 210.4-a for Electronic Filing in City Courts Outside the City of New York. Both are generally in line with the existing 22 NYCRR § 202.5-bb(c), which governs electronic filing in supreme court.
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