\u201cI have observed counsel waiting in the area when I enter a facility and still waiting when I exit the facility,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s very, very clear that these are violations of the right to counsel.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cozier added that the \u201cad hoc manner of dealing with legal visits has to be formalized.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe cannot have a circumstance where there are recurring violations of the right to counsel,\u201d Cozier said. \u201cIt is sacrosanct. It is extremely troubling to me because I have not seen these issues being remediated in the past year-plus I have served on the board. These are things the department has to address.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cozier\u2019s comments followed a detailed recitation of the problems by Michael Klinger, the jail services attorney at Brooklyn Defender Services.<\/p>\n
Klinger says confusion often reigns throughout a visit, with Correction staff spouting different procedures depending on the jail. Once they finally get to a given jail, the solicitors often have to wait more than an hour to see their client.<\/p>\n
![\"New](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/250316_doc1.jpg\")
A Department of Correction officer. (James Keivom\/New York Daily News)<\/p>\n
On Sept. 2, a barrister with Bronx Defenders waited two-and-a-half hours as a Correction officer dithered about how to handle the visit, Klinger said.<\/p>\n
A day later, an attorney at the Robert N. Davoren Center waited four hours. Her client was produced only after the lawyer complained to a Correction captain, but the detainee said he was only told he had a legal visit minutes earlier, Klinger said.<\/p>\n
Klinger said the delays violate two Correction Department directives: 6000R, which lays out the right to visit clients, and 6002, which states legal visits must start within 45 minutes of the lawyer\u2019s arrival at the Perry Center initial check-in building.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe counsel visits processes create barriers, and what may seem like inconveniences effectively cut off their clients from their own defense,\u201d Klinger said. \u201cYesterday I waited for an hour and 10 minutes and I considered that pretty good.\u201d<\/p>\n
The jail services attorney noted the problem is decades old. In fact, U.S. District Judge Harold Baer held forth on the matter at length 25 years ago in a decision in the Benjamin v. Kerik class-action case.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis court finds that defense counsel routinely face unpredictable and significant delays in meeting with inmate clients at department facilities,\u201d Baer wrote in Benjamin v. Kerik in 2000. DOC\u2019s policies and procedures, he added, \u201chave led to unconstitutional burdens to inmate access to counsel and courts.\u201d<\/p>\n
The visit booths are often deteriorating, the attorney noted.<\/p>\n
\u201cSometimes there\u2019s no chair. Sometimes the chair is broken. The lights often don\u2019t work and visits are conducted in the dark,\u201d Klinger said. \u201cAt times, the security glass is so thick, the lawyer can\u2019t hear the client.\u201d<\/p>\n
The sound in headsets is often too faint to be understandable. In other places, the headsets are broken or there is only one. In several jails, others can overhear the supposedly confidential lawyer-client conversations. In some cases, the conversation is interrupted by loud music played by the officers.<\/p>\n
Klinger said in one incident, following the ultimately voided arrest of Queens public defender Bernardo Caceres for possession of THC-soaked legal papers, an officer posted himself outside a visit room with a drug-sniffing dog.<\/p>\n
![\"Bernardo](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/IMG_0232.jpg\")
Bernardo Caceres. (Photo courtesy of Bernardo Caceres)<\/p>\n
![\"Rikers](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/CRVG7UVYBFE2XF5QWRJMDPICPE.jpg\")
<\/p>\n