No surprise. New York Attorney General Leticia James will appeal a court decision that overturned a regulation issued by Governor Kathy Hochul that allows health department employees to arrest people suspected of exposure to a communicable disease, and imprison them indefinitely with no legal path for people to get out of detention!
Cattauragus County Supreme Court Judge Ronald Ploetz threw out the regulation in January declaring the scheme "absurd" and blatantly unconstitutional. But the Governor and Attorney General want to restore the power to seize anyone suspected, no evidence required and hold them for an indefinite period of time. You should wonder why they want that power.
Attorney Roberta Anne Cox who filed the original suit for a group of Republican legislators has already announced that she will be fighting the State’s appeal.
Please use the panel to the right to send email messages to Hochul and James expressing your opposition to appealing Judge Ploetz’s correct decision.
Please call and comment on the social media of the Governor and Attorney General’s offices and let them know that you disagree with them about the appeal and want them to drop it.
Governor Kathy Hochul (518) 474-8390, (212) 681-4580, Hochul only takes voice mail. Call anyway.
Fax (518) 474-1513
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/govkathyhochul, and https://www.facebook.com/KathyHochul
Twitter: @GovKathyHochul, and @KathyHochul
Attorney General Letitia James, (800) 771-7755
Twitter: @TishJames, and @NewYorkStateAG
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/newyorkstateag, and https://www.facebook.com/LetitiaJamesforNY
Hochul’s regulation would allow public health officers to arrest people suspected of having been exposed to a communicable disease, which in the age of Covid means everybody, with no need for proof of infection, no hearing, no magistrate, and no legal counsel for the accused. The accused could be held for an indefinite period at the health department’s discretion since actual infection by a disease was not required for arrest and detainment. Counsel for the State admitted that once arrested there is no mechanism to compel the state to release a detained person other than the detained person hiring a lawyer and suing the state.
Hochul’s regulation directly conflicts with longstanding New York Public Health Law Section 2120 that allows involuntary quarantine only after a person can be shown to be infectious and that ordinary quarantine-at-home methods will be insufficient. Evidence must be presented to a judge with counsel for the accused. And the quarantine may only last as long as the person is infectious.
Judge Ploetz wrote in his decision, “The Commissioner (of the New York State Department of Health) has unfettered discretion to issue a quarantine or isolation for anyone, even if there is no evidence that person is infected or a carrier of the disease. Further, the Commissioner sets the terms, duration, and location of the detention, not an independent magistrate as required by PHL Sec. 2120.”
Legislation, mostly recently called Assembly bill A416, giving the Governor similar powers languished for years in the Assembly until the bill’s sponsor withdrew the proposal at the end of 2021 after a barrage of negative national publicity. Hochul immediately proposed the new regulation that gave herself even more power to arrest and detain than in A416. All aspects of creating regulations are under the control of the Governor.
Please share this message with friends and family, and please share on social networks while we still can.
Follow us on Telegram, https://t.me/autismActionNetwork
Follow us on Instagram, https://www.instagram.com/autismactionnetwork/