Jail expert says DOC boss should remain in charge of Rikers as judge weighs receivership

A city-hired jail expert told a federal judge last week that DOC Commissioner Lynelle Maginley-Liddie should remain in charge of Rikers Island should the judge put the jails into a receivership. Photo via DOC/X

By Jacob Kaye

As a federal judge continues to consider taking Rikers Island out of the city’s control, a jail expert hired by the city says that current Department of Correction Commissioner Lynelle Maginley-Liddie should remain in charge of the violent jail complex.

The assessment from Gary Raney, a former sheriff from Idaho who has, for nearly 15 years, consulted on jail practices throughout the U.S., looked favorably on the city’s suggestion that Maginley-Liddie should be charged with reforming the jails under the judge’s orders as “compliance director” while simultaneously serving as commissioner.

Raney’s opinion is the first real endorsement of the city’s compliance director proposal, which was first submitted in January to Judge Laura Swain, who is overseeing the ongoing detainee rights case known as Nunez v. the City of New York. The city’s plan was issued as a last-ditch effort to retain as much control over the jails as possible after lawyers representing Rikers’ detainees asked Swain to appoint an independent receiver to take control over Rikers.

Swain said in November that she was “inclined” to appoint a receiver after ruling that the city had failed to address abuses by guards, detainee violence, cultural reform within the DOC and other factors that make Rikers a particularly dangerous jail complex.

But Swain has yet to make a ruling in the case after asking both the city and Legal Aid Society, federal prosecutors and Emery Celli Brinckerhoff & Abady, which together represent Rikers’ detainees in the case, to map out what they believe receivership should look like.

Swain indicated last week that she’s willing to wait until at least May 15 – the date the federal monitor tasked with tracking conditions in the jails is expected to issue his next report – to issue her ruling.

Should Swain take the extraordinary step to put Rikers into a receivership, Raney said that he believed there would be “no faster path to substantial compliance than the leadership structure that is in place now.”

“Commissioner Maginley-Liddie has provided me with insight into her plans for leadership, staffing and reform,” Raney wrote in his assessment submitted to Swain on Friday. “She is a strong leader who has the confidence of the organization. That importance cannot be overstated. Any change in leadership would likely once again destabilize the organization and delay substantial compliance.”

“It is my opinion that Commissioner Maginley-Liddie, acting with even greater independence and authority from the court as compliance director, will accelerate the reforms,” Raney added. “I am confident that the solutions can be successfully applied in the NYCDOC under the current leadership and in a reasonable amount of time.”

Raney’s analysis echoed arguments made by the city in favor of the compliance director proposal, which would see Maginley-Liddie given additional powers to make changes on Rikers Island.

Under the city’s proposal, Maginley-Liddie would answer to Swain directly regarding the Nunez court orders – Swain found the city in contempt of 18 of those orders in November. As commissioner of the agency, Maginley-Liddie would continue to answer to the mayor, however the mayor would not be able to fire her during her five-year term as compliance director.

The city claimed their proposed receivership structure would satisfy Swain’s concern that attempts to reduce violence on Rikers over the past decade have been stymied by turnover in both the mayor’s and commissioner’s offices.

“The last nine years also leave no doubt that continued insistence on compliance with the court’s orders by persons answerable principally to political authorities would lead only to confrontation and delay; that the current management structure and staffing are insufficient to turn the tide within a reasonable period; that defendants have consistently fallen short of the requisite compliance with court orders for years, at times under circumstances that suggest bad faith; and that enormous resources — that the city devotes to a system that is at the same time overstaffed and underserved — are not being deployed effectively,” Swain said in November when she ruled the city wasn’t compliant with the Nunez court orders.

Raney, who first rose to prominence for his efforts to reform the jail he once oversaw in Ada County, Idaho, appeared to view Maginley-Liddie as a reformer after his own heart.

“There are bright and motivated people throughout the NYCDOC who are being inspired by Commissioner Maginley-Liddie,” Raney said in his assessment. “She is bringing a new vision and energy to the position.”

“While no single individual is irreplaceable, it is my opinion that upending the current leadership structure and resultant uncertainty would almost certainly slow the progress toward substantial compliance,” he added.

It’s not the first time Maginley-Liddie’s alleged desire for reform has been at the forefront of the argument to allow the city to continue to control Rikers.

In arguing against receivership last year, the city told Swain that Maginley-Liddie, who was appointed by Mayor Eric Adams in December 2023 after his previous DOC commissioner, Louis Molina, largely clashed with the judge and her monitor, should be given time to let her efforts take root.

Maginley-Liddie had a familiarity with the Nunez case and an existing relationship with the monitor when she first began the job. She started with the DOC as an agency attorney in 2015, the same year the Nunez consent judgment was put in place. Adams touted her connection to the case when he appointed her.

But the Legal Aid Society has rejected the argument.

“We do not doubt that [Maginley-Liddie] has made and continues to make good faith attempts to address at least some of the deficiencies that have plagued DOC for decades and appreciate the productive and collaborative relationship she appears to have developed with the monitoring team,” the public defense firm said in a January court filing. “But the city’s proposal is flawed in that it primarily relies on the hope that the current commissioner — who has been embedded in this deeply dysfunctional system for years and had no corrections or management experience before joining DOC — will now find a way to bring defendants into compliance and overcome the cultural, structural, and organizational barriers that have thwarted all prior DOC Commissioners’ reform efforts.”

The Legal Aid Society declined to provide comment for this story.