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Albany County resident Brandon McKinley, age 42, of Watervliet, was sentenced to an aggregate term of three to nine years in prison in Albany County Court Tuesday, Nov. 15.
The sentence followed his September 2022 guilty plea to three counts of driving while intoxicated, a felony.
According to prosecutors, McKinley was stopped by Watervliet Police on three separate occasions in May, June, and July 2022. During each stop, officers determined that he had been driving while under the influence of alcohol.
McKinley’s license had already been revoked due to seven previous DWI arrests since 2008, according to police.
Following his arrest on May 2, McKinley was initially held at the Albany County jail but was released on bail a few days later.
He was arrested a second time on June 19, when Watervliet Police again determined he had been driving under the influence of alcohol. Officers also found him in possession of crack cocaine, prosecutors said.
McKinley was later released on an appearance ticket and ordered to appear in Watervliet City Court at a later date.
Just two weeks later, on July 7, Watervliet Police stopped McKinley’s vehicle again and, like the previous two stops, determined he had been drinking alcohol. His vehicle also lacked an interlock device, as required by the court.
He was arraigned for a third time in Watervliet City Court and taken to the Albany County jail, but was released on bail a few days later.
The Watervliet Police Department later put out a public statement, in which Chief Joseph Centanni laid blame squarely on state lawmakers.
“This offender is a serial intoxicated driver. The danger that he and every impaired operator pose to our roadways is not in dispute,” Centanni said.
“McKinley’s actions indicate an obvious need for assistance, which has unfortunately gone unanswered.
“The single reason this defendant continues to place our community at risk is because he cannot be remanded due to an absurd provision in New York’s bail reform law,” he continued.
“Although our officers are disappointed, we remain committed to removing dangerous criminals from our streets.”
New York’s bail reform legislation took effect at the beginning of 2020, allowing judges to set bail in almost any case involving a felony, including those deemed high-risk where a person has been rearrested.
When considering whether or not to release a defendant on bail, the law requires judges to focus solely on whether the person will return to court and not their subjective view of how “dangerous” the person may be.
Supporters say the legislation protects a person’s presumption of innocence and reduces racial biases, while critics argue it has led to rising crime rates.
However, backers of bail reform point out that there has been no direct evidence tying it to a rise in violent crime.
The Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law cited a January 2022 analysis by the Times Union of Albany that found that relatively few people released under the new legislation went on to be rearrested for serious offenses.
Analysts found that between July 2020 and June 2021, of nearly 100,000 people who were released pretrial in a decision “related to the state’s changed bail laws,” just 2 percent of defendants were rearrested for a violent felony, while 20 percent were rearrested for any offense, including misdemeanors and nonviolent felonies.
As many as 80,000 people may have avoided jail with cash bail due to the reforms and went on to pose no documented threat to public safety, the Times Union found.
“That means any attempt to link bail reform to rising crime should be evaluated skeptically,” the Brennan Center said.
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