Former Columbia County District Attorney’s decision to ignore the state’s 2019 discovery laws served neither justice nor the alleged victim.

The former Columbia County district attorney had a practice of withholding from defense attorneys the interviews conducted with alleged child sex crime victims, arguing that doing so protected victims’ privacy.

The problem is that the law requires prosecutors to disclose to the defense all evidence relevant to a case. Since 2019, New York law has also set a specific timeline for that process, known as discovery.

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The Times Union’s Roger Hannigan Gilson recently detailed a case in which the Appellate Division’s Third Department found that then-Columbia County District Attorney Paul Czajka — who left office in 2023 and died the following year — flouted the new discovery laws........

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