Legal Workers Protest After Woman Forced to Give Birth in Brooklyn Courtroom

On Monday, legal service workers protested in front of the Brooklyn Criminal Court and the Brooklyn District Attorney’s Office after a woman who was being detained was forced to give birth in a courtroom on Friday.

At least 150 legal advocates, public defenders, and local lawmakers rallied against what the Association of Legal Advocates and Attorneys (ALAA) called “the dangerous conditions in Brooklyn Criminal Court arraignments that put New Yorkers at risk of harm and even death.”

On Friday, a woman waiting to be arraigned on low-level charges was forced to give birth in court just before midnight in front of judges, attorneys, and court staff, with her hands cuffed behind her back.

“Attorneys and staff from The Legal Aid Society and Brooklyn Defender Services who were present in the courtroom witnessed her labor and deliver her child on a courtroom bench without adequate medical care, privacy, or dignity, surrounded by court personnel, prosecutors, law enforcement officers, and others,” a statement from the Legal Aid Society said. The woman had spent over 24 hours in custody, and was unable to pick up her infant or remove her own clothing as she gave birth.

The woman’s lawyer, Wynton Sharpe, claimed that she delivered a “bouncing baby boy,” saying, “It was a joyful and sad situation, given the circumstances.”

But a public defender with the Legal Aid Society who was in the courtroom, Jen Kovacs, said that Sharpe was not even there, and that his statement “misrepresents the reality in the courtroom that night, which was complete violence.”

At least three people have died while waiting for arraignments in this same court building over the past year, advocates have pointed out. “Earlier this year, hundreds of Brooklynites were detained after arrest for more than 24 hours before seeing a judge, a violation of their rights under the law,” the ALAA said in a statement, adding that conditions in the courthouse are “unacceptable.”

“People in medical or psychiatric distress are chained to benches or are squished together in filthy, unsafe holding cells while waiting for their most simple due process rights,” the statement continued.

“Arraignments have become a place where people now die in cuffs and give birth in cuffs,” said UAW union leader Lisa Ohta. “Multiple systems are failing to ensure that our clients are treated with humanity. Without systemic change, these violations will continue and more New Yorkers will suffer or die.”

Ohta said that ALAA and UAW are calling on New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani to bring back EMS personnel to courthouses, to investigate Friday night’s failure, and to visit the court and “see firsthand the unsafe and shameful conditions working class New Yorkers are subjected to every day.”

While speaking at the protest, Olga Karounos, a staff attorney at the Legal Aid Society, said, “Tax payer money goes not to health care or affordable housing but incarcerating our clients pre-arraignment — where they must sit 24-48 hours in a cell, with no contact with the outside world, missing work and family obligations.”

Elena Beeley, a night court paralegal, also spoke at the protest, saying, “It should not be normal for lives to begin or end awaiting arraignment on misdemeanor charges, handcuffed in criminal court.”

“Night court cannot become a delivery room,” she said. “You know some things we don’t have in [night court]? Soap. Gauze. Potable water. Shoes for the three clients last week who were released barefoot by the NYPD.”

“I was deeply troubled to witness the medical emergency on Friday night,” Beeley continued. She also expressed frustration that Mamdani has not worked to address the problem, stating, “When my primarily health care union helped elect a mayor to end the city’s affordability crisis, we didn’t mean $11B for the NYPD to turn court into a filthy, degrading emergency room. When New Yorkers elected a mayor to fix the housing crisis, we didn’t mean one free night in shackles at the end of your life.”

Sharon Lu, vice president of Legal Aid Society Attorneys United, told Truthout, “Yesterday’s overwhelming turnout demonstrated to both court officials and DA Eric Gonzalez that we will not accept a court system that does not recognize the humanity of the people forced to endure it.”

“However, less than 24 hours since the rally, we learned that two more people died in captivity on Rikers Island,” she went on. “Clearly, these events are not one-offs. They are the result of policy decisions by the NYPD and the District Attorneys to use this carceral system to ‘manage’ poverty. The community demands more. The community demands humanity.”