The City Council has filed a lawsuit over Mayor Eric Adams’ executive order flouting a controversial solitary confinement ban in city jails — arguing his push is an overstep and “unprecedented” abuse of power.
The suit, filed in Manhattan Supreme Court on Monday, is pushing to quash the emergency order Hizzoner enacted back in July to suspend parts of a newly passed law seeking to limit the amount of time inmates can be isolated from the general population.
The mayor only issued the orders — just one day before Local Law 42 was due to go into effect — as a retaliatory move after the council overrode his veto of the confinement ban, the suit argues.
“The democratic process of lawmaking cannot justifiably be declared a state of emergency, and Mayor Adams’ emergency orders are an unlawful and unprecedented abuse of power,” Speaker Adrienne Adams said.
“The City Council overrode the Mayor’s veto to ban solitary confinement in city jails because its use has been proven to cause physical, psychological, and emotional harm and makes our city and jails less safe,” she continued.
“Mayor Adams’ decision to exceed his legal authority, simply because he was overruled, undermines the foundation of our democracy, and it must be invalidated.”
If enacted, Local Law 42, which was passed by the council last December, would have banned punitive segregation in jails — including at the troubled Rikers Island Correctional Facility — beyond a four-hour “de-escalation” period.
It also would have changed the way jailers transported inmates from place to place by axing the practice of keeping them in handcuffs and leg irons while on buses or in other vehicles.
The mayor’s order, however, modified the ban to allow the Department of Corrections to tailor solitary times depending on individual inmates’ needs.
City Hall, at the time, justified the emergency order because the ban could have been dangerous for jail staffers and other inmates.
Still, the council argues in court papers that Adams acted “beyond lawful authority” — and is asking for it to be scrapped entirely.
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Since issuing the orders, Hizzoner too has extended the emergency declaration every 30 days and his order suspending the law every five days, the suit charges.
“This lawsuit is aimed at ensuring mayoral abuse of democratic government cannot stand, and the human rights and safety crisis on Rikers caused by maintaining the status quo of failed policies and practices is discontinued,” Speaker Adams said.
“Despite his desperate power grabs, this mayor can’t just ignore the laws he doesn’t like,” Public Advocate Jumaane D. Williams added.
“Ending the harmful isolation of solitary is a moral and legal imperative, yet the administration is desperately trying to maintain a status quo on Rikers that is dangerous to people on both sides of the bars.”
Several organizations are set to back the legal filing — including the the Bronx Defenders and the New York Civil Liberties Union.
