Breakfast with the Manhattan DA

I was invited to hear Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance Jr. speak at a breakfast event this morning.   From my perspective, Vance hits all the right notes, talking in equal measure about his responsibility to improve public safety, promote innovation, and ensure the fundamental fairness of the justice system.  I was particularly struck by his commitment to self-reflection, which is one of the things that the Center for Court Innovation has attempted to promote through our study of the trial-and-error process.  Among other things, Vance talked about engaging the Vera Institute to analyze the data about how his office wields discretion in order to discern whether there is any unintended impacts on racial/ethnic minority groups.