ALBANY, NY — While many New York State residents were celebrating the coming of 2017 on New Year’s Eve, Gov. Andrew Cuomo quietly vetoed legislation that would have overhauled the state system of funding legal representation for indigent residents.

Counties now provide 90% of the funding for legal representation for residents who can’t afford an attorney. Under the current system, residents in some counties receive good representation while representation in other counties is poor.

In 2014, the state settled a lawsuit called Hurrell-Haring v. State of New York et al, which was also aimed at five counties (Suffolk, Washington, Onondaga, Ontario and Schuyler,) that were accused of providing substandard legal representation to indigent residents. The settlement included a guarantee that the counties would spend more money on representation for their population, ensure that indigent criminal defendants have representation at their  first court appearance, and place caseload limits on public defenders.

The legislation Cuomo vetoed would have added to those reforms and carried them throughout the state. The legislation would also have shifted the responsibility of paying for the whole system entirely to the state over a seven-year period. Cuomo said the proposed system was too expensive. In his veto message, he wrote that the system outlined in the legislation, which passed both houses unanimously, would have ultimately cost state taxpayers $800 million per year, with $650 million paying for provisions that had nothing to do with reforms agreed to in Hurrell-Haring.

The governor’s message said there was a clear need for reform of indigent defense in the state, and he will work for that in 2017, but this bill, he said was a “backdoor attempt to shift costs from the counties to state taxpayers under the guise of indigent defense.”

The New York Civil Liberties Union condemned Cuomo’s veto. “We are deeply disappointed that the governor has vetoed the most important criminal justice reform legislation in memory,” said NYCLU Executive Director Donna Lieberman. “He has rejected a groundbreaking and bipartisan fix to our deeply flawed public defense system and left in place the status quo, in which the state violates the rights of New Yorkers every day and delivers unequal justice.”

Assemblywoman Patricia Fahy, who sponsored the bill, said, “Despite the tremendous support to achieve this long overdue criminal justice reform measure to bring cost savings and better access to counsel for indigent defendants across New York State, we have failed in these final hours to reach agreement.” She said she would work on a fix in the new session.

In a statement, New York State Bar Association President Claire P. Gutekunst said: “We are disappointed by the governor’s veto. Sponsors Sen. John DeFrancisco and Assemblywoman Patricia Fahey crafted a thoughtful bill that had widespread support from county governments, the legal community and community organizations.

“The State Bar Association’s priority continues to be enactment of a law to ensure that New York’s public criminal defense system provides meaningful legal representation to all indigent criminal defendants in New York, in accordance with the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Gideon v. Wainwright (1963).

“We hope to work with the governor and legislature to accomplish that goal early in the new year.”