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Our only agenda is to publish the truth so you can be an informed participant in democracy. We need your help. More Info ### I would like to contribute One Time Monthly Yearly Join Now ![](\\" ![](\\" Ron DeSantis stated on March 20, 2023 in a news conference: Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg “has downgraded over 50% of the felonies to misdemeanors.” ![\\"true\\"](\\" true/3d4df195c595a07e3fd69b5e4aab3e3c.jpg.\\") ![\\"true\\"](\\" true.jpg\\") * Criminal Justice * Florida * New York * Ron DeSantis ![\\"Manhattan](\\" Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg speaks at a press conference April 4, 2023, after the arraignment of former president Donald Trump in New York. (AP) ![\\"Jill](\\" By Jill Terreri Ramos April 8, 2023 # Are more than half of felony charges in Manhattan downgraded? Yes, but it’s common elsewhere, too #### If Your Time is short * In 2022, the first year Alvin Bragg served as Manhattan district attorney, his staff downgraded 52% of felonies that were screened to misdemeanors, an increase from prior years. * Data from 2021 shows that other boroughs had a greater percentage of felonies that had been downgraded to misdemeanors. * Downgrading or upgrading charges after an arrest is not uncommon, experts said. See the sources for this fact-check Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis joined his fellow Republicans in attacking Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who presented evidence against former President Donald Trump to a grand jury. Trump, whom the grand jusry indicted, faces 34 felony counts and is accused of falsifying business records to protect his presidential aspirations. Bragg used his office to \"impose a political agenda on society at the expense of the rule of law and public safety,\" DeSantis said at a recent news conference. \"He has downgraded over 50% of the felonies to misdemeanors.\" Bragg’s approach to running the district attorney’s office has been criticized by Republicans since he took office in January 2022. The case against Trump has increased GOP attacks on Bragg, a former federal prosecutor from Harlem. We wondered whether DeSantis was correct, if more than 50% of felonies in Manhattan were downgraded to misdemeanors. Data posted on the district attorney’s website shows how the office handled arrests over the years. Felonies are more serious charges and can lead to more than one year in jail. Misdemeanors are lesser charges and carry a penalty of up to a year in jail. In 2022, Manhattan prosecutors reviewed 15,710 felony arrests and the office declined to prosecute 1,225 of them, or 7.8%. Of the felony cases that survived review, 52% were downgraded to a misdemeanor, 7% were downgraded to a lower-level felony, 8% were upgraded to a different felony, 33% were an equivalent felony, and in 0.1% of cases, 12 in all, the charge was downgraded to a violation. The data does not signal why prosecutors changed the charges, though experts told us this practice is not unusual. Under Bragg, prosecutors downgraded a greater share of felony charges to misdemeanors than in recent history in Manhattan. In 2021, under his predecessor, Cyrus Vance Jr., 47% of felonies were downgraded to misdemeanors. In 2020, when the city was strained by COVID-19 quarantines and related judicial delays, that figure was 35%. It was 39% in 2019 and 40% in 2018. 2023 data shows that so far, 54% of felonies have been downgraded to misdemeanors. But in the recent past, before Bragg took over, the rates of downgrading felonies to misdemeanors were higher in other New York City boroughs. Similar state data compiled by the Data Collaborative for Justice at John Jay College of Criminal Justice shows that in 2021, the most recent year with available data, three other boroughs had higher rates: 56% in the Bronx, 57% in Brooklyn and 59% in Queens. (This data, which could have included a different set of cases, showed that in Manhattan in 2021, the rate was 52%.) Prosecutors’ decisions to downgrade or upgrade a charge after an arrest are common, because prosecutors have more complete information than police officers do at the time of an arrest, said Jullian Harris-Calvin, director for Greater Justice New York, part of the Vera Institute of Justice, a group calling to end to mass incarceration. Although police officers must make decisions in the moment, prosecutors can take a longer view, weigh evidence and think through how they can build a case, Harris-Calvin said. Other experts agreed. \"Law enforcement must establish probable cause to effectuate an arrest, but prosecutors are likely applying the higher standard of proof beyond a reasonable doubt to determine what charges they may be able to prove at trial,\" said Krystal Rodriguez, policy director at the Data Collaborative for Justice. #### Featured Fact-check ![](\\" logo-black-01/b6cedac93f6e57c68ecc025e5ec29d57.jpg\\") ![](\\" logo-black-01/438dbf066033f99de07598cbcc77ddcb.jpg\\") Threads posts stated on July 14, 2024 in a post on Threads Trump campaign rally gunman Thomas Matthew Crooks was “arrested more than once.” ![\\"true\\"](\\" false/33efdb6633e5e2fdc2d4e2f63383a1e0.jpg.\\") ![\\"false\\"](\\" false.jpg\\") By Ranjan Jindal • July 16, 2024 There are other factors, too, said Hannah Meyers, a fellow and director of policing and public safety at the conservative Manhattan Institute. A state discovery law from 2019 burdened prosecutors, leading to increases in dismissed cases and other outcomes, including downgrading charges, she said. The law requires prosecutors to share their evidence with defense attorneys quickly — within 20 days if a defendant is in jail — or risk having the case dismissed, though extensions are granted. The law was in response to situations in which defendants and their lawyers were unaware of all of the evidence that would be used against them. Bragg has also brought his own priorities to the office, which perhaps can be attributed to the increase in the percentage of felonies that were downgraded to misdemeanors in 2022, Meyers said. Bragg campaigned promising to reform prosecutions. But soon after taking office, he came under fire for a memo in which he said that over-incarceration does not make the city safer, and that jail should be reserved for offenders who commit truly violent acts. Following sharp criticism from elected officials, police and small businesses, Bragg issued another memo a month later, in which he changed some of the earlier memo’s language. For instance, he said that commercial robberies at knifepoint or with another weapon that could cause physical harm should be prosecuted as felonies. Bragg’s approach factors in what he says is an over-incarceration in his borough. Manhattan incarcerated a greater share of its residents than the city’s other boroughs by a wide margin. On Jan. 3, 2022, of every 100,000 residents, Queens had 40 incarcerated, Brooklyn had 44, Staten Island had 51, the Bronx had 78 and Manhattan had 106. Bragg’s spokesperson pointed us to historical data on the district attorney’s website but otherwise declined to comment. DeSantis’ spokesperson did not return a request for information. Our ruling DeSantis claimed that Bragg has downgraded \"over 50% of the felonies to misdemeanors.\" Data from Bragg’s website confirms that 52% of felonies that were screened by prosecutors were downgraded to misdemeanors in 2022, the first year Bragg was in office. 2023 data shows that so far, 54% of felonies have been downgraded to misdemeanors. Experts said that downgrading charges is a common practice and that it was done more often in three of New York’s other boroughs, according to state data from 2021. We rate this claim True. RELATED: All of our fact-checks about criminal justice RELATED: All of our fact-checks of DeSantis #### Read About Our Process The Principles of the Truth-O-Meter ### Our Sources Twitter, video of Gov. DeSantis news conference, via @FLVoiceNews, March 20, 2023. Email interview, Krystal Rodriguez, policy director, Data Collaborative for Justice, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, March 21, 2023. Email interview, Olive Lu, Ph.D., associate director for research, Data Collaborative for Justice, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, March 21, 2023. Phone interview, Jullian Harris-Calvin, director, Greater Justice New York, Vera Institute of Justice, March 21, 2023. Email interview, Doug Cohen, spokesperson, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, March 21, 2023. Manhattan District Attorney’s Office Data Dashboard, arrest data, accessed April 8, 2023. Email interview, Hannah Meyers, fellow, director, Policing & Public Safety, Manhattan Institute, March 22, 2023. Gothamist, \"Bragg walks back some stances in maligned policy memo amid pressure,\" Feb. 4, 2022. Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg Day 1 Memo Fact Sheet, Jan. 6, 2022. The New York Times, \"Why hundreds of New York City prosecutors are leaving their jobs,\" April 4, 2022. New York State, Division of Criminal Justice Services, \"Implementation of 2020 discovery law changes: update,\" December 2021. Data Collaborative for Justice, Discovery reform in New York, updated May 2022. ## Browse the Truth-O-Meter ### More by Jill Terreri Ramos ![](\\" ![](\\" Claudia Tenney stated on July 3, 2024 in a social media post: Biden Executive Order 14019 “requires our taxpayer-funded federal agencies to violate the Hatch Act and engage in illegal vote harvesting.” ![\\"pants-fire\\"](\\" th.jpg\\") ![\\"pants-fire\\"](\\" pants-fire.jpg\\") By Jill Terreri Ramos • August 2, 2024 ![](\\" ![](\\" Ritchie Torres stated on May 23, 2024 in a television interview: “The loss of SALT deductibility cost our state $15 billion in revenue. So New Yorkers are paying more in taxes and receiving fewer services because of Donald Trump.” ![\\"barely-true\\"](\\" th.jpg\\") ![\\"barely-true\\"](\\" barely-true.jpg\\") By Jill Terreri Ramos • June 21, 2024 ![](\\" ![](\\" Kathy Hochul stated on February 22, 2024 in an interview: In New York, there are no barriers to law enforcement to work with the federal government on immigration laws, and there are 100 crimes where migrants can be handed over. ![\\"barely-true\\"](\\" th.jpg\\") ![\\"barely-true\\"](\\" barely-true.jpg\\") By Jill Terreri Ramos • March 29, 2024 ![](\\" ![](\\" Elise Stefanik stated on January 28, 2024 in a television interview: “We’ve seen an 800% increase in the Swanton sector, which is the part of the northern border that I represent, in illegal crossings.” ![\\"true\\"](\\" ![\\"true\\"](\\" By Jill Terreri Ramos • February 23, 2024 ![](\\" ![](\\" Nick LaLota stated on November 18, 2023 in a social media post: Under New York’s Clean Slate Act “violent crimes … will now be automatically sealed after a set time - like they never happened.” ![\\"barely-true\\"](\\" th.jpg\\") ![\\"barely-true\\"](\\" barely-true.jpg\\") By Jill Terreri Ramos • January 1, 2024 ![](\\" ![](\\" New York Citizens Audit stated on August 25, 2023 in a report: A discrepancy in the number of ballots and voters in the 2022 general election in New York “appears to be a federal crime.” ![\\"false\\"](\\" ![\\"false\\"](\\" By Jill Terreri Ramos • October 29, 2023 ![](\\" ![](\\" Nicole Malliotakis stated on July 14, 2023 in a radio interview: “You can work at some McDonald’s in this country for more money than … signing up for the military.” ![\\"half-true\\"](\\" th.jpg\\") ![\\"half-true\\"](\\" true.jpg\\") By Jill Terreri Ramos • July 28, 2023 ![](\\" ![](\\" Robert F. Kennedy Jr. stated on June 5, 2023 in a podcast: Atrazine in the water supply is contributing to \"sexual dysphoria\" in kids. ![\\"false\\"](\\" ![\\"false\\"](\\" By Grace Abels • June 28, 2023 ![](\\" ![](\\" Kathy Hochul stated on May 9, 2023 in a news conference: The New York state budget covers 96% of eligible preschoolers ![\\"mostly-true\\"](\\" th.jpg\\") ![\\"mostly-true\\"](\\" mostly-true.jpg\\") By Jill Terreri Ramos • May 18, 2023 ![](\\" ![](\\" TikTok posts stated on April 26, 2023 in a TikTok post: Fauci, DOD and CDC funded deadly pathogen research at Sudan lab ![\\"false\\"](\\" ![\\"false\\"](\\" By Jill Terreri Ramos • May 8, 2023 ![](\\" ![](\\" Facebook posts stated on March 1, 2023 in a social media post: New York Gov. 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Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg has downgraded over 50 of the felonies to misdemeanors