The New York City Council is expected to approve a resolution Thursday which would allow it to take legal action should the city go to court to block the law severely restricting the use of solitary confinement in the jails, Council officials said.
The move expected during Thursday’s full council meeting would allow Speaker Adrienne Adams to file court papers in opposition to any move by lawyers for Mayor Adams to block the solitary ban — known as Local Law 42 of 2024 – which is supposed to go into effect July 28.
“In accordance with Council rules, we will be voting on a Resolution to authorize the Speaker to take legal action on behalf of the legislative body,” Council spokesman Rendy Desamours said in a statement.
“Solitary confinement has been internationally recognized as torture and has led to the deaths of people subjected to it in New York City, and we will be prepared to defend the local law banning this practice.”
The law, passed in December after a year of debate, was vetoed by Adams in January. The Council then immediately over-rode the veto. The city then sent a letter to U.S. District Judge Laura Taylor Swain asking her to suspend elements of the law arguing the law makes the jails unsafe.
Swain is presiding over Nunez v. City of New York, the 2011 class action that led in 2015 to the appointment of a monitor to track violence and staff use of force in the jails. The monitor, Steve Martin, penned a letter in January with his own qualms about the solitary ban saying it would “exacerbate already dangerous conditions.”
But on June 25, the city Board of Correction unanimously approved rules based on the law, which bars detainees from being held in a cell alone for more than two hours in a 24-hour period, excluding sleeping hours and limits isolation following a fight or other infraction.
“There is no evidence that solitary confinement makes the jails safer,” Dr. Robert Cohen, a BOC board member, said at the meeting.
The mayor’s press office didn’t respond to a request for comment.
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