NY’s Protect Our Courts Act

André Koehne, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

On December 14, 2020, NY’s Governor Andrew Cuomo signed into law the Protect Our Courts Act.

The law amends the state’s civil rights law, stating:

A person duly and in good faith attending a court proceeding in which such person is a party or potential witness, or a family or household member is a party or potential witness, is privileged from civil arrest while going to, remaining at, and returning from, the place of such court proceeding, unless such civil arrest is supported by a judicial warrant or judicial order authorizing such civil arrest.

The text of the law does not refer in any manner to ICE, but it’s clearly directed at that agency’s activities. What it does is prohibit courthouse arrests by ICE without a judicial warrant authorizing the arrest. In addition, the law makes ICE liable for false imprisonment and contempt if an arrest is carried out in violation of this new law.

The Protect Our Courts Act also amends the state’s judiciary law. Most significantly, by stating that

any representative of a law enforcement agency who, while acting in an official capacity, enters a New York state courthouse intending to observe an individual or take an individual into custody shall identify himself or herself to uniformed court personnel and state his or her specific law enforcement purpose and the proposed enforcement action to be taken; any such representative who has a warrant or order concerning such intended arrest shall provide a copy of such warrant or order to such court personnel;

In addition, the law contemplates review of any warrant by a judge or court attorney and no courtroom arrests absent “extraordinary circumstances.”

-KitJ