Opinion

If you want a textbook example of how absurdly unfair New York’s criminal justice system can be, look no further than a Staten Island judge’s recent decision to vacate a man’s 2018 guilty plea after body camera footage emerged that appears to show an NYPD officer planting marijuana in his car.

One of the most interesting and sometimes admirable things about incoming Mayor Eric Adams may also prove to be one of the most frustrating for New Yorkers and politically costly for him.

In the last three weeks, high profile trials in Wisconsin, Georgia and Virginia concluded, each addressing the intersection of race, criminal justice and public safety.

I grew up on a farm in Ohio surrounded by friends who were farmers. I have tremendous respect for their profession and I understand how difficult it is to do what they do. But as a doctor who has treated farmworkers for 40 years, I also know how debilitating and dangerous farm labor is.

Over the course of the last several elections in New York City, there have seen major snafus from the New York City Board of Elections. From absentee ballots arriving in the wrong mailboxes (or after election day), to long lines at polling stations, to errors counting votes, the BOE has consistently managed to frustrate and confuse voters. When errors occur, City Council members rush to issue statements and circulate social media posts critical of the election administrators. Yet when given the opportunity to exercise real oversight over the BOE, this Council has dropped the ball.

Morningside Park in Manhattan is a space where two worlds combine. Scruffier and less well-funded than Central or Riverside parks, it’s a steep dividing line between Harlem on the north and east, and Columbia University and Barnard on the west. When my mother attended Columbia in the 1940s, students were strictly warned away.