Williams v. Ward

WINTER, Circuit Judge:

Under current procedures in New York City, a person who is arrested without a warrant first appears before a judicial officer at an arraignment in the City’s Criminal Court. At that arraignment, the arres-tee is afforded counsel, a probable-cause determination is made, pretrial release conditions are set, plea bargains are often struck, and charges may be dropped. Over one-third of such arrestees have their cases finally disposed of at arraignment. The rub is that arrestees must often sit in jail for more than two days before the arraignment. The plaintiffs in this case…