Being arrested disrupts someone’s life and the lives of their loved ones. It also threatens their safety. Even a single day in detention can have cascading consequences and make someone more likely to be arrested again in the future.
An arrest also sets the criminal legal process in motion. While jurisdictions handle
this process differently, they generally proceed in a similar manner: after an arrest is made, the person accused of a crime is detained by police, a prosecutor decides whether to file formal charges, the accused person meets their lawyer, and, ultimately, has their first court hearing, known as an arraignment. During that hearing, the accused person either pleads guilty or not guilty to the charges, and a judge decides what rules the charged person must follow while their case moves through the courts. This could include requiring the person to be held in jail unless they can pay a bail amount, ordering them to stay away from a person or location, or requiring them to be drug tested.
To understand that process better, here’s a detailed look at how a case goes from arrest to arraignment in New York City.
Police interaction and arrest
Arrests begin with a police interaction. That can be a 911 call, a report to the police station, a police investigation, a police observation, a traffic stop, or a “stop-and-frisk” encounter.
However an arrest begins, the person being arrested has the right to remain silent. Alice Fontier, a longtime New York City public defender and former managing director of Neighborhood Defender Service of Harlem, says exercising that right is the most valuable thing a person can do while the police are investigating an incident or initiating an arrest.
“There are no magic words that are suddenly going to stop an arrest,” Fontier told Vera. “There’s nothing to gain from talking to the cops without a lawyer present. . . . You’re way more likely to stay out of jail and prison if you don’t give the prosecution any words they can twist to fit their accusations.”
Detention
Once police place someone under arrest, they must then formally “process” that person into the criminal legal system. In New York City, they do so by bringing the accused person to the local police precinct and completing paperwork, taking mugshots, and gathering fingerprints. While this happens, the accused person is usually held in a cell with other people who have been arrested.
After an arrest, a prosecutor will review
law enforcement information about the case and decide if formal charges will be filed with the court. If the accused person is not charged, they must be released. People facing low-level charges may be released
directly from the precinct following this initial process. In that case, they are usually given a printed summons or a desk appearance ticket that tells them when they must show up to court.
If the charge is more serious, police may take
the accused person to Central Booking to complete yet more paperwork. (New York City has five locations—one for each borough.) While officers fill out forms and sign statements about the arrest, the accused person is typically locked in a cell.
This process is required to be speedy by law; the accused person is still legally innocent, and the arrest process denies them their freedom. Under New York State law, anyone accused of a crime must have their first court hearing within 24 hours of an arrest. In practice, however, that’s not always the case: although New York City has made efforts to improve
its average time of detention before arraignments, the city no longer shares that data. Fontier says that people are often still held longer than the 24 hours mandated by law.
“It happens all the time, and there’s nothing you can do to make it go faster; you just wait,” Fontier told Vera. “There’s no recourse if it takes longer, at least in criminal court, unless you can prove it was done intentionally to coerce a confession.”
During the booking process, police ask if the accused person has an attorney. Most people charged with crimes do not, and are consequently assigned a public defender, whom they will meet before their first court appearance. If the person does have a private attorney, they can call them.
Meeting with an attorney
After the booking process is complete, police transfer the accused person to the courthouse, where they will have their first court appearance: their arraignment. They are taken through a separate court entrance, walked through a series of hallways in the back of the courthouse, and ultimately taken to yet another holding cell.
These holding cells are where most people first meet their attorneys. The cells offer no privacy, so conversations in them are typically short and to the point, Fontier says. This first meeting is not the place for long discussions of legal strategy. Public defenders know most of their clients have had a terrifying 24 hours or more. They are hungry, tired, and stressed, and the public defender’s priority is getting the person out of detention as soon as possible.
The initial conversation with a public defender is a quick exchange of information. Their client shares the basic circumstances of their arrest, the names and phone numbers of loved ones, and details about their community ties, like their family or employer, that could help convince the judge that they will honor all of their court appearances, and therefore do not need to be held in pretrial detention. The public defender shares what charges they face (if they have not already been told), and usually tells their client what to expect from the arraignment hearing, sharing any plea deals the prosecution may have offered. If the prosecution has made such an offer, the attorney will present it and provide context and advice while leaving the ultimate decision to the client. Those decisions are complicated, as the criminal legal system often coerces
guilty pleas through incentives, such as getting out jail sooner with a guilty plea, rather than face a trial with mandatory minimum sentences. In most cases, though, no such offer is made, and the attorney will advise their client to enter an initial plea of not guilty.
Arraignment
The legal purpose of arraignment is to formally charge the accused person and enter into the record their plea to those charges: guilty or not guilty. The judge will also determine what level of restrictions to order before the person’s trial, which can include release on the person’s own recognizance (ROR), supervised release, money bail, or even remand to city custody (sent to jail without the possibility of bail).
The courtroom connects to the holding cells through a door behind the judge’s bench. Court officers lead people out of the holding cells in batches to await their arraignments. For the duration of their time in the courtroom, people waiting for arraignments are handcuffed and under close watch of court officers. The vast majority of those waiting together will be people of color: more than 88 percent of people arraigned in New York City in the first 11 months of 2023 were nonwhite.
The arraignment hearing itself is straightforward and contained. The prosecutors formally read the charges into the court record. The judge will then ask the person accused if they understand the charges against them and how they plead.
If they plead guilty, it is almost always because they agreed to a plea deal with the prosecution. In New York City, only 18 percent of cases ended in a guilty plea at arraignments in 2023. If the judge accepts the terms of the plea, they can resolve the case right then, in accordance with the agreement’s stipulations.
But in most arraignments, the accused person pleads not guilty. The court then provides legal notices on the case, including upcoming court dates, if there is property that has been seized, and other logistical items. For some charges, judges can consider whether to set bail. In those cases, the judge then asks, “As to bail?” The prosecution will subsequently argue their recommendation, often some form of money bail. The defense attorney usually argues for some lower requirement or ROR.
Under New York State’s criminal procedure laws, the judge is constrained to consider only the risk that the accused person will not appear at future court dates when making their decision. Bail is theoretically meant to ensure the accused person follows through on their promise. (Notably, though, the overwhelming
majority of people return to court regardless of their bail status.) Despite the law, judges likely consider other factors, such as whether they believe that the person accused is a threat to public safety. That process contributes to a two-tiered
legal system, in which the rich can buy their pretrial freedom while people who cannot afford to do so are held in jail while awaiting their day in court.
“The judge holds all the authority and power around bail,” said Fontier. “They have sole discretion to decide unless the case is non-bail eligible. In this regard, they are kings.”
If the judge imposes bail, the accused person is sent to jail until they themselves, someone they know, or a bail bond agent can put up bail money. If the judge imposes some other form of pretrial supervision—be it electronic monitoring, mandated services like some supervised release programs, or other requirements—the court will make arrangements for it. And, if the judge rules a person be released on their own recognizance, court officers will undo their handcuffs, and they are free to walk out of the courtroom.
