It’s not as if there was a problem on Staten Island that demanded a fix. Richmond County is the home of police officers, former police officers, their relatives and their next door neighbors, all living atop a garbage dump. Hey, this is America and that’s their choice. They’re allowed.

But when someone decided that Staten Island needed a new courthouse, and that $230 million was a worthy investment because it’s not like roads and bridges needed funding for repairs, it was well worth it to make sure they covered every base possible.  And indeed, they did.

Say you’re one of the 1.2 million New Yorkers with an open warrant for public urination, stoop drinking, or a missed court date of some other kind, and you have the misfortune of being arrested on Staten Island. You spend the night trying to sleep on a filthy cement floor at Central Booking surrounded by strangers and hope you don’t have to make use of the communal toilet with no seat. At some point, a guard calls your name. It’s your turn to meet with your court-appointed lawyer, or, if you’re connected, a private attorney you called.

Oops. I forgot to mention “connected” people on Staten Island. They live there too, although they rarely get pinched for public urination, and never get prosecuted by the Richmond County District Attorney. The SDNY and EDNY have dibs on “connected” people. But I digress.

Off of the holding cell there is a door leading to five alcoves. You sit in one and looking back at you through shatterproof glass is your lawyer. You have just a few minutes to consult about your situation before it’s the next person’s turn. This is your only chance to strategize before a bail hearing, where a prosecutor could argue you’re a menace to society and should be shut away at Rikers Island for months or years awaiting trial.

These few minutes are often the most important in a defendant’s case. They determine whether the defense lawyer can make a viable pitch for release or low bail by learning about the person on the other side of the shatterproof glass, what happened, how strong the case is, how closely tied to the community they are. If they get out, outcomes vastly improve. If they stay in, they’re pretty much screwed. This matters.

Starting Monday, with the opening of the new $230 million Criminal and Supreme Court courthouse by the Staten Island Ferry Terminal, that crucial conversation is being recorded and the footage kept by the Department of Correction.

Recorded.  There are cameras. There are microphones. This meeting between lawyers and clients is being recorded. There is no confidentiality. There is no privilege. There is, however, video in the hands of the Department of Corrections who manages the lock-up before defendants appear before the arraignment judge the first time. And they built a $230 million facility where the attorney/client meeting cubicles are recorded.

The Mayor’s Office said the cameras are needed for security purposes and pledged to keep the microphones off.

Security is such a useful word. It’s there for your protection, lawyers, because these are criminals and they can be very, very dangerous.  We’re just doing it for the children.  Ever see what it looks like in one of these cubicles?

The separation between lawyer and client is so dense as to make seeing one another nearly impossible. The idea that a defendant could somehow do harm is totally absurd.  And that’s why no other New York facility has cameras in attorney meeting rooms. Because it’s total marlarky.

But Bill de Blasio’s office “pledged” to turn the mikes off, and if you can’t trust Bill, well then you have to do exactly what the public defenders in Richmond County will do.

Legal Aid lawyers interviewed and arraigned client after client like normal, but had to warn each that they were being recorded and shouldn’t speak openly.

Meaning that it’s hardly “like normal,” where a lawyer can do what her duty requires of her, to ascertain everything possible to zealously defend her client. Instead, it’s an interview without the one thing that makes an interview mean anything, the ability to speak freely with one’s lawyer.

To its credit, legal aid went to court to have the right to counsel vindicated and offending cameras removed.  Not that they don’t trust Mayor de Blasio’s pledge, but nobody trusts that they won’t record anyway. Accidents happen. And even if they keep their pledge, lawyers can’t ignore the potential for recording and pretend the cameras and microphones aren’t there.

On Monday, head Staten Island Criminal Court Judge Alan Meyer denied Legal Aid’s request to remove the cameras or allow lawyers to meet clients in the rooms without cameras.

What possible reason could Judge Meyer have for denying something that so flagrantly impairs the constitutional right to effective assistance of counsel? Who knows, but he did.  Maybe he’s just a trusting sort of judge, and if the city says they won’t record, well dagnabbit, they won’t record. Problem solved.

A Mayor’s Office spokeswoman said that the cameras are pointed at defendants only, the city thinks it is legally in the right to use them, and city lawyers will review the lawsuit when it is filed. She said further that the Correction Department will comply with any court orders regarding the footage, and that “visibility” is a driving principle of recent and in-the-works jail redesigns. Asked for examples of specific security risks posed by un-monitored booths, she said she did not know of any offhand.

And this is how precedent is created, because the next jail that builds cameras and microphones into attorney/client meeting cubicles will have an answer to the question of “who else does this?”  Why, Staten Island does. New York City does. And if they do it in New York City, surely it must be lawful.  Surely, we should do it here too.  Problem solved.

H/T Turk