Time for New York's prison chief to go

A federal judge’s decision paints a picture of a state corrections commissioner unable or unwilling to address brutality and corruption.

Commissioner Daniel Martuscello III of the state Department of Correction and Community Supervision at a legislative panel in May 2025. In the preceding six months, two men had been beaten to death by correction officers in New York's prisons

If she hasn’t already, Gov. Kathy Hochul should read a federal judge’s decision to reject state corrections Commissioner Daniel F. Martuscello III’s attempt to get out of a lawsuit brought by the family of an inmate who was beaten to death at the Marcy Correctional Facility in 2024.

The 39-page decision from U.S. District Court Judge Anne M. Nardacci isn’t some incremental step in the case: It’s a scathing assessment of Mr. Martuscello’s role in willfully overlooking a culture of violence among corrections officers in the prison system he has overseen since June 2023.

Read the full article at the Times Union.