Touting Discovery Law Changes Secured in FY 2026 Budget

Earlier today, Governor Kathy Hochul visited the Albany County District Attorney's Office to announce the changes in discovery law secured in the FY 2026 State Budget deal.

B-ROLL of the Governor greeting district attorneys and staff in the Albany County District Attorney’s office is available to stream on YouTube here and TV quality video is available here (h.264, mp4).

VIDEO: The event is available to stream on YouTube here and TV quality video is available here (h.264, mp4).

AUDIO: The Governor’s remarks are available in audio form here.

PHOTOS: The Governor’s Flickr page will post photos of the event here.

A rush transcript of the Governor’s remarks is available below:

 I want to applaud all of you. I want to applaud you for being on the front lines of protecting our communities from criminals and making sure that victims have justice. And I want you to know and you should be proud of how hard your district attorney, District Attorney Kindlon, has worked to work with us and the administration to change the law with respect to discovery so you no longer have barriers to your work and making sure that our communities and streets are safe.

So, really proud we got it done. We did get it done. Got some scars to show for it, but I said I was not going to finish the Budget until I had meaningful discovery laws where we stopped the insanity, where cases that people have worked hard on and done everything right and going forward, and because of some technicality or some duplicative piece of evidence that's not there, some timeframe not meant, some minor timeframe, that those have stopped cases from going forward — that era is over. And I want to, again, thank you for being the heart and soul of our efforts.

My husband was a prosecutor for most of his career; my son is a federal prosecutor right now. So, I know how hard you work and how disheartening it is for you when you put all your heart and soul into a case and then have it dismissed. So, we're working hard. I want to thank the district attorney once again. The entire New York State District Attorney's Association worked tirelessly with us, hand-in-hand.

This is a nonpartisan issue. We have support from all of our district attorneys, almost all, and I just want to thank all of you for all the work you do every single day.