Source: By Rich Calder and Matthew Sedacca
Drunk drivers are getting a free ride in New York City.
Nearly half of all drinking-and-driving offenses in Manhattan were tossed out of court last year – as dismissal rates soared over five times higher than they were before state lawmakers enacted a controversial evidence reform law in 2020, records show.
Of the 262 drunk-driving cases handled by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office in 2022, 128 – or 49%—were dismissed on technicalities or for other reasons.
In 2019, the office, then led by Cy Vance, handled more than double the amount of DWI and other drunk-driving cases, yet only 55 — or 9% — of the 589 were tossed.
Critics blamed the startling statistics on the new “discovery” law overwhelming New York’s criminal justice system – which even the soft-on-crime Bragg concedes is a huge problem for prosecuting traffic offenses.
