By Michele Evans / NYweeklyRecord.com / Date: 11/1/2026
Category: Criminal Courts / Rikers Island / Corrections / Justice Reform
NEW YORK CITY, NY – New York City’s jail system missed a legal deadline to give detained people secure digital access to evidence in their criminal cases, leaving thousands of pretrial detainees dependent on a slower system of mailed materials, physical drives and limited law-library equipment.
The Board of Correction reported in October that the Department of Correction had not implemented Evidence Review Technology by the July 1 deadline required under Local Law 138 of 2025. The law was intended to let people with pending criminal cases review audio, photographs, video and documents through department-issued devices or jail law libraries.
DOC has identified Lightning Law as its proposed platform, according to the Board. But when the oversight report was issued, the program had not been rolled out on tablets or in law libraries across the jail system.
The delay reaches the core of a defendant’s ability to participate in a case. About 85 percent of the city jail population was awaiting trial at the end of September, the Board said. The average daily population was 6,559.
Current access depends on attorneys sending discovery by mail or on drives that must pass through DOC’s legal division before reaching a facility. Law-library staff can provide laptops to review approved files, but detained people cannot store discovery on their personal jail tablets.
The Board’s small interview sample found recurring barriers. Thirteen of 22 respondents said they had experienced delays or difficulty accessing discovery. Nine reported interruptions tied to equipment, law-library operations, housing restrictions, staffing or technical problems. Nine said they did not know how to request the new technology, and 11 said law-library staff had not told them about it.
The report also identified 748 tablet replacements caused by software or technical problems between January and August. DOC distributed 4,827 tablets during that period, including devices for newly admitted people and replacements for missing or damaged equipment. Those numbers do not establish how many working tablets were available systemwide at any one time.
Some detained people told the Board they had enough time to review evidence before court dates or case deadlines. Others did not. Several described positive help from legal coordinators. The Board cautioned that its 22 interviews were not representative of the entire jail population.
Those limits do not erase the central finding: DOC was out of compliance with a city law months after the deadline.
The Board recommended that DOC complete procurement with the vendor, train uniformed and civilian staff and publish quarterly reports during the first year. Those reports should track use, access barriers, detainee feedback, data breaches and technical failures.
The unanswered questions are operational and urgent. DOC has not publicly provided a firm launch date in the report, a facility-by-facility implementation schedule or a measure of how many court deadlines were affected by evidence-access delays. Until the system is live and independently measured, the city cannot show that people held before trial have a reliable chance to review the case against them.
Sources
Use of Evidence Review Technology in City Jails, NYC Board of Correction
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