When someone is arrested in Monroe County, they no longer will be booked and arraigned in the municipality where they were taken into custody.
Now they'll be booked at the Monroe County Jail and arraigned in the Hall of Justice. The new approach means police can get back on the road sooner after making an arrest, and defendants will go in front of judges quicker, said William Taylor, administrative judge for the state's 7th Judicial District, which includes Monroe County.
The shift to centralized arraignments has been months in the making and involved a large number of partners including court staff, the District Attorney's Office, the Public Defender's Office, and the county's police agencies. County Executive Adam Bello said the change is about making the legal system fairer and more efficient.
"This is how it's supposed to work," Bello said. "All of us coming together in a bipartisan way, all your branches of government, your law enforcement agencies, your courts, the county, all the towns, the villages, the city of Rochester, working together to figure out how we can make the system better and figure out how we can make the system work."
Taylor said the previous system worked, but it also had flaws. For example, after officers made an arrest, they and the accused would have to wait for a judge and defense attorney to be available for an arraignment.
"For logistical reasons, these arraignments — sometimes at two, three, four, o'clock in the morning, any day of the week — almost always occurred without the prosecution, court, security and vital services like pretrial services being present," Taylor said.
The centralized arraignment initiative was part of County Executive Adam Bello's 2025 budget, which the Legislature passed in December. Bello said that when Taylor brought the idea to him, he saw it as a "no-brainer."
"It is a powerful commitment to fairness, accessibility and the rule of law in our community," Bello said.
