Brooklyn District Attorney's Race Heats Up Heading into Summer Campaign

The seven Democrats running for Brooklyn District Attorney in the September primary are heading into a busy campaign season. Judging from a forum Monday night at a church in Brooklyn Heights, criminal justice reform is a hot topic for voters.

Acting District Attorney Eric Gonzalez, who took over the job when Ken Thompson died late last year, closely aligned himself with his predecessor's efforts — such as declining to prosecute low amounts of marijuana possession. All of the candidates have worked as prosecutors and most also strove to be viewed as progressives.

Nonetheless, the forum in front of an audience of more than 150 people — sponsored by 14 Democratic reform clubs — did highlight some differences.

Ama Dwimoh, Patricia Gatling, Anne Swern and Marc Fliedner all said they support eliminating cash bail for low level, non-violent offenses. Proponents of such bail reform view it as crucial in closing the jail complex at Rikers. Fliedner said there's no correlation between having a poor person pay $200 and coming back to court. Dwimoh added, "we will not criminalize being poor."

Gonzalez, however, took a more nuanced approach. "You should never be asking for bail unless you're asking for jail," he stated. But he said he's asked his prosecutors to seek bail less often by paying attention to the specifics of each case.

John Gangemi said the current policy of checking each defendant's background appears to make sense, and Vincent Gentile, a Brooklyn Councilman, suggested the state legislature should deal with bail reform.

The candidates were also asked about how they'd protect immigrants from President Donald Trump's aggressive enforcement actions. Gonzalez already announced that he's instructed his prosecutors to consider an immigrant defendant's status when negotiating plea deals for low level crimes to avoid triggering deportation.

But Fliedner said he worried about a "big brother" approach, in which prosecutors make blanket policies without the advice of immigrant advocates. Gatling had a different concern. She said she wouldn't want to treat one group differently from another simply because of status. She suggested more outreach to immigrant communities, so they know the risks of even minor offenses, like turnstile jumping.

Discussions about prosecutorial discretion — or using the district attorney's office to shift policy — got the coldest reception from Gangemi. "These laws were enacted by the legislature," he said. "District attorneys and assistant district attorneys are sworn to uphold the law."

Fliedner criticized one high-profile decision by former D.A. Thompson: not to seek prison time for Peter Liang, the police officer convicted of manslaughter for shooting an unarmed black man in a housing project. "I stepped away, I left," he said, referring to his decision to quit the office.

The candidates tried to distance themselves from policies of former district attorney Charles Hynes, now that more than 20 convictions during his tenure have been exonerated. Some called for more accountability for prosecutors. Gentile, who was an assistant district attorney in Queens before entering politics 20 years ago, noted that he is the only candidate who didn't work in the Brooklyn D.A.'s office at some point. "We risk going back to that era," he warned, citing Hynes' name.

But Gonzalez said he's changed the "ethos" of the office. He touted the conviction integrity unit he put together with Thompson that led to the exonerations.