Reflections

This year, Osborne celebrates forty years of Court Advocacy Services. Originally launched as the Assigned Counsel Alternatives Advocacy Program (ACAAP) and then known as Assigned Counsel Services, CAS works in partnership with court-appointed defense counsel to develop, when appropriate, individualized pretrial release and sentencing recommendations. Guided by the idea that public safety and human dignity are not competing values, CAS’s mitigation specialists have demonstrated that courts make better decisions when they understand the full story of the people before them. Through in-depth social work assessments and mitigation reports, CAS provides courts with information about a person’s background, circumstances, and community ties, supporting consideration of community-based alternatives to detention and incarceration. CAS has helped shift the focus from punishment to individualized, community-based responses that promote stability, accountability, and long-term success across New York City and now the Hudson Valley and the Capital Region. Its work has helped reduce excessive sentencing and expand access to alternatives to incarceration for thousands of people.

To mark this milestone, Osborne has gathered reflections from former CAS staff and Elizabeth Gaynes, former President and CEO, who helped develop and sustain the program. Read their reflections below.

Share one story that represents the heart of Court Advocacy Services.
This is about an ethic rather than a specific event. It’s the credo of Lois Taylor, the Director of CAS when I was there during the early 1990s, and it informed the way that I’ve approached this work for the last 30 years: “It’s not about you.” For Lois, this meant leave your ego at the door and commit your full attention and effort to the person in front of you. Listen, learn, be humble and compassionate and ethical, and treat every client’s freedom and well-being as though it were your own.


How did your work with CAS participants shape your own perspective on justice, accountability, and healing? 
Among my first few clients was a 20-something young man whose severe mental illness and substance use disorder overwhelmed him and his family, particularly his grandmother, who deeply loved but also feared him. His life was a series of crises punctuated by short stints on Rikers Island—more crises—followed by homelessness, decompensation, relapse, and rearrest. A familiar pattern. Justice and accountability for the prosecutor was simple and short-sighted: punish the offense, send him upstate, wash your hands of him. Job done. He was the first client whose impossibly challenging condition and circumstances began to teach me that justice and accountability can and should take many forms; that rehabilitation is often more difficult than incarceration; and that we must be persistent in the face of easy solutions to complex problems.

Is there a particular story or moment that captures the heart of what CAS does?
For me, a moment that stands out is when I accompanied a young, female participant to a Planned Parenthood facility because she had no one else who would go with her. Since this was during my first year at CAS, I anticipated getting push back that this was not part of our role. However, the opposite proved to be the case: I was strongly encouraged to accompany her. This stands out because it underscores that CAS saw our participants as human beings and not just as people with carceral experiences. And I believe this was - and I imagine still is - the beating heart of CAS: we honor the humanity of the folks being served in our role as advocates in every facet of their lives.
 

What kind of difference did you see CAS making in the lives of participants and their families?
The kind of difference I saw CAS make in the lives of the participants and families we served was giving them someone tangible to rely on during a really challenging time. While we were not able to make any promises regarding what outcome to expect, we were able to promise them that we would be there with them every step of the way: we would answer their questions, advocate on their behalf, support them in accessing much needed resources, and, usually most importantly, provide them with an opportunity to, as indicated in my first response, to have their humanity acknowledged and validated. During what often proved to be overwhelming and chaotic experiences navigating the legal system, our participants and their families were able to cling to the fact that they truly had someone on their side, and this consistently proved to add some light during really dark times.

How did your work with CAS participants shape your own perspective on justice, accountability, and healing?

When I first started working at CAS, I think my concept of justice was pretty unsophisticated. I believed people shouldn’t be over-punished and that jail or prison should always be a last resort. Through my relationships with CAS clients, I gained a deeper understanding of the circumstances that led them into contact with the legal system and used that understanding to advocate for them with judges and prosecutors. The work taught me the importance of client-centered, holistic advocacy: listening to people, building trust, and advocating for outcomes that avoid further harm. While my core view of justice these days remains similar, my experience at CAS deepened my understanding of the history and structural inequality shaping the criminal justice system and continues to serve as a foundation for my work.

Osborne’s Court Advocacy Services has sustained a remarkably high level of trust for a remarkably long period of time among a remarkably wide range of people - prosecutors, judges, court staff, defense attorneys, community-based service providers, and people facing criminal charges. I’m not surprised to see CAS continuing to grow and thrive. Thinking back on Andrea’s 30+ years at Osborne, she will certainly find a lot to be proud of - but most of all, I hope she takes great pride and satisfaction in the thought of the many thousands of people whose lives have been made better, if not saved, because of her work.

Osborne’s Court Advocacy Services had a profound effect on the clients we served. As an advocate working primarily with adolescents, the work required getting close to young people and their families, interviewing parents, schools, employers, coaches, and community members to build a three-dimensional picture of who a young person was and what circumstances shaped their behavior. Those detailed portraits, paired with lawyers’ recommendations, allowed courts to consider meaningful alternatives to incarceration, and in many cases led to tangible, lasting change, young people earning GEDs, enrolling in college courses, and securing employment. For me, the intimacy of that work, of building those relationships with young people, reinforced a core belief that every person holds worth, and that humanizing young people through rigorous, relationship-based advocacy is one of the most effective ways to support accountability, growth, and healing.

We have always believed that the right of defendants to the “effective assistance of counsel” requires an inquiry that goes beyond the facts of the criminal case, but includes an evaluation of the defendant’s history that enables the court to more fully understand the person before them, and the reasons why treatment or supervision may yield a better long-term result than prison. Providing a psycho-social history for the court and prosecutors -- while lawyers focus on the legal issues related to guilt or innocence-- contributes to a more just outcome in terms of access to more individualized and appropriate sanctions better designed than prison to lead to rehabilitation,  including treatment, work readiness, employment, and family connections.