As both Bronx District Attorney Darcel Clark and her primary challenger Tess Cohen vie for the Democratic nomination on Tuesday — the first all-female race for the boroughwide seat in history — much of the public forums leading up to the primary has seen the candidate on the offensive and the incumbent defending her record.
For the first time since taking office, Clark — the first and only Black woman in the state to hold a district attorney post since her election in 2015 — is facing a challenge from within her own party.
A 35-year-old progressive who worked eight years in the Manhattan DA’s office, Tess Cohen has put the two-term incumbent’s record up for review on nearly every aspect of the DA’s vast job description.
Clark, Cohen vie for borough’s most complex job, Bronx DA, in Dem primary
From management of alleged abuses at Rikers Island to efforts to expand the power of the position to break the cycle of violence and incarceration in the borough, Cohen has often asserted that Clark could and should be doing more as Bronx DA to address these issues.
During a 30-minute debate conducted by BronxTalk on Monday, Cohen mentioned the Bronx’s low conviction rates and inaction on prosecuting or investigating the deaths of inmates and action of Department of Correction personnel at the embattled Rikers Island complex.
At one point during Monday’s debate, Cohen prompted a back-and-forth about Clark’s role in the death of Kalief Browder — who took his own life in 2015 following a three-year wrongful incarceration in Rikers Island — as a microcosm of a broken system in need of reform.
Browder’s imprisonment, release and suicide happened during the tail-end of predecessor Robert Johnson’s administration, but Clark presided over six court dates involving Browder in 2010. The 61-year-old incumbent noted Browder’s situation was a “colossal failure” of that administration, but a failure that has stuck with her.
In a Thursday interview with PIX11, Cohen said that the Bronx’s District Attorney’s office is “in crisis.”
Clark’s office has secured guilty verdicts in just 60% of murder arrests by law enforcement — the lowest in the city — compared to 62% in Brooklyn, 66% in both Queens and Staten Island, and 76% in Manhattan, according to data from the state’s Division of Criminal Justice Services.
Since 2018, Clark’s office has declined to prosecute at least 101 attempted-murder arrests of varying degrees, with Cohen pointing to the lack of follow through on cases involving sexual assault, according to state data.
According to state data, the Bronx DA’s office has also declined to prosecute 172 rape and 51 sex-abuse arrests of varying degrees during that time period.
While Clark stated that her challenger was “misinformed” on the numbers, the incumbent DA doesn’t believe convictions should be how her administration should be judged.
Clark told the Bronx Times in a prior interview that she wanted to move away from the Bronx’s approach to the crack epidemic in the 1980s, where prosecutors aimed to “lock people up, hit them with every charge and push for maximum sentences.”
“Prosecuting cases and convictions is not a measure of success. It’s about getting justice,” said Clark. “I am doing that for victims of crime. I am doing that for Bronx communities, and I am doing that for those who are accused of the crimes.”
Clark has sought to redefine the role of the Bronx DA as one that is centered on empathetic leadership, despite the office being under-resourced and affected by an exodus of staff in recent years.
While low pay was a factor in the mass exodus of staff from the Bronx, both Clark and Cohen point blame at New York’s 2019 discovery statute – included in a package tied to the oft-discussed bail reform law – which the Manhattan Institute says, “crippled the state’s criminal justice system” and forced district attorneys’ offices encumbered with onerous paperwork to triage cases and caused judicial harm for both victims of crime and criminal offenders.
Clark’s office has been beset by a litany of prosecutor resignations, which she links to the state’s onerous discovery reform law, a policy she and other district attorneys want amended. The office’s budget has doubled to a baseline of $11 million since Clark took office, the Manhattan DA, by comparison, has had an annual baseline budget of $169 million.
The Bronx DA job isn’t an enviable one given the amount of deficits the office has encountered in recent years, coupled with the borough’s 44% spike in crime since 2021 and an acute backlog in court cases.
Between 2014 and 2020, the Bronx suffered the highest attrition rate among all other New York City DA’s offices – except the much-smaller Richmond County in Staten Island – with nearly 16% of Bronx assistant district attorneys departing over that time span. Clark’s office lost 96 lawyers and 51 professional staffers during the 2021 fiscal year, and up to 104 attorneys and 90 staffers by April 2022.
The challenger in numerous forums has put the onus on the Bronx DA’s office to be innovative with its approach to criminal justice, touting more avenues to alternative methods to incarceration.
Incumbency often prevails in Bronx races, and Clark has a major fundraising advantage — $185,000 to $32,000 — to that of Cohen, a first-time office seeker. And also has the institutional support from the Bronx Democratic Party and key endorsements that include state Attorney General Letitia James, U.S. Sen. Chuck Schumer and labor groups like 32BJ SEIU.
But Clark emphatically stated that she “is the Bronx” and alluded to her ability as a high-connected official with the experience in the city’s judicial landscape who can equip the under-resourced Bronx. Clark has pointed to the work of her Community Justice Bureau, formerly the Alternatives to Incarceration Unit, which helps prosecutors connect people with community resources.
“I agree we do need to bring more resources to the Bronx. I have the power to do that because of the connections (I have),” she said. “I was with the courts for 16 years and I know that we need more judges. I fight for those things each and every day.”
