Lee Kindlon defeated Albany County District Attorney David Soares in Tuesday’s Democratic primary. Kindlon returned to politics after losing to Soares in 2012.
Soares’ primary loss came after local Democrats abandoned the 20-year incumbent after he used a state grant to give himself a $23,000 bonus. Soares later returned the money.
Kindlon, a prominent defense attorney, now turns his attention to November, where he will face Republican Ralph Ambrosio – who declared his candidacy on Thursday – and a potential rematch against Soares, who has not yet conceded. Soares has not spoken publicly since election night.
WAMC's Lucas Willard spoke with Kindlon Saturday about his primary victory.
We went home, my wife and I on Tuesday night, and kind of stared at each other for an hour and just let it all soak in. Got a good night's sleep, woke up, and still, there's a little bit of shock in the Kindlon household that dad pulled it off. And the past couple of days have been a whirlwind. I've gotten phone calls from elected officials all over the state, from family and friends and I've done everything I can to do some outreach to people that help me along the way. I mean a lot of “thank yous” I need to put out. And what I think is important for me right now is to take a beat and not get too wrapped up in, “Oh gosh, next March, how are we going to do this program or that?” I mean, I want to make sure that, you know, I have a clear head heading into the planning phase in a couple of weeks.
Have you spoken to your primary opponent since the contest on Tuesday?
No.
Has he conceded in the race yet?
No
Are you prepared to run in a possible three way race this November, with Ambrosio entering the race on Thursday?
Yeah. I mean, look, we started this campaign late in February, and we put together everything as fast as we could, and that required a lot of hard work on my part, and the campaign’s, the staff and we pulled off what some people are calling an upset win. I was always pretty confident that we were going to win, but I have nothing but faith in my campaign's ability to deliver the win in November, whether it's against the Republican or if David wants to somehow mount an ill-fated write-in campaign, I beat him once, I'll beat him again.
I'll ask you a sort of a broad question. Do you have an assessment of safety in Albany County, and how would you improve it?
Yeah. Look, you can go on to the DCJS website, and you can see the statistics, and you can count the number of murders we've had in Albany County over the past couple of years, and you can say, “Look, I want to get that number down to zero.” But I think a more important measure for me is whether or not, the people of Albany County feel safer, because we can point to the statistics and say, “Oh, crime is dropping,” but what's going to be important for me is being very responsive to the voters, and when they come to me and tell me that they feel safer on their streets and they feel as if there's been this improvement, then I know that the job we're doing is effective and it is a little more subjective, but again, I want people to feel safer and I want people to feel as if things are getting better.
Two of the items, of course, talked a lot about on the primary campaign trail were bail reform and Raise the Age. Maybe we'll start with bail reform, that's been tweaked multiple times by the state legislature since the initial reforms in 2019. How do you feel about the system as it is right now? Is it working? Or would you push for further reforms? What do you think?
So, let's start where we were 5, 10, years ago, and that is cash bail was not mandatory, but prevalent for anything and what the reforms tried to do was building a little more equity into the system. And I think we all want equity in the criminal justice system. So, for misdemeanors and non-violent felonies, they said, “Look, we're not going to punish you just because you're poor,” and that's great. However, I think, us practitioners realized that it never really worked the way it was intended. And a real common example is when the reforms first passed, burglary in the second degree, which is when someone breaks into your house to commit a crime, that was suddenly not bail eligible. You just get let go. And that's a violent crime, and that is something that viscerally affects people. But then the reforms to the reforms came along, said “Okay, no, we're, we went too far. Let's, let's scale these things back.” Suddenly, you could set release conditions like bail or, you know, electronic monitoring or supervision, probation for burglary, for domestic violence, for other crimes of violence and so you're starting to see an equalizing of where the reforms are, which is to say, going forward, I do think that there need to be greater reforms. I do think that judges need to have greater discretion. I certainly hope that the legislature realizes that there are more, there's more road to travel. But what I think is important as, again, as a practitioner, is we need to work as prosecutors to give judges as much legal cover as they can get. So, if they want to set bail, if they want to set release conditions, then they have legal authority from the DA’s office, that I'm going to run, that legal authority to actually do it and to be safe and so that's protected from appellate review. So, that's one of the things. Like, look, I'd love for the legislature to pass these reforms and give us all more tools to work with, but in the interim, the problems need to be solved in the courtroom, and that's one of the things I'm looking forward to doing.
Now, with Raise the Age, you've said it was incomplete. Can you explain a little bit more as to why you think it's incomplete, and again, how you believe it could be improved upon?
Sure, and that's another law that was passed, again, with good intentions. New York was one of the last states in the country to treat 16, 17, 18-year-olds as adults, and so you'd have 16-year-olds going to state prison hanging out with a bunch of, you know, older men who were hardened criminals. And so, the reforms passed. And you know those of us, again, who work in the courtrooms and who see it implemented, realize that there's just no like, there's no structure to it, there's no instructions once you get past the first page. And that's never good. And so, what we've been trying to do over the past couple of years, is build out that structure in the courtroom. So, that's why it's incomplete. So, one of the things we have to continue to do is litigate those things and try and figure out the best way forward to keep the people safe and to give the young men and women a good second chance, if they deserve it. But you know, there are also giant, gaping holes that you know, like, “Look legislature, you got to get back to it, and we got to fix this thing, and we got to give the courts again more tools and more options.”
What do you think your perspective as a defense attorney brings to the position of the county's lead prosecutor? You've talked about, with that experience in the courtroom, how do you think that perspective would bring an advantage to the office?
So, let's go through a typical week I now have as a defense attorney in which I appear in five different county courts, or local courts, you know, 10 different local courts, federal court. And so, I get a perspective about how other counties do the job, and I get a perspective in terms of how other judges approach cases, instead of the three or four judges we deal with in Albany County Court, at least. So, you see all these different approaches, and, you know, different counties handle things in a different way. So, I have that bird's eye view of how the criminal justice system can work. But like, also understand, I live in the town of New Scotland and I grew up on Lenox Avenue here in Albany, and so for me to be able to become familiar with and become friends with and to empathize with and to have compassion for men and women who did not grow up in the same situation as me, who did not have the same advantages as I do, to familiarize myself and to then convince them, like, “Look, I'm your friend. I'm on your side. I want to help you,” that gives me a perspective in terms of how everybody kind of gets into the criminal justice system, and some of the best solutions on how to get them, how to make the criminal justice system work for everybody. And so, I think it's false, and I think it was an insult to voters, what my opponent tried to do when he tried to pay me as the soft on crime goofball. But I think, and the reality is, I have a real, practical working knowledge of things. I have some empathy and compassion for people that will always be there, but I also have just this real working knowledge on how the criminal justice system can be better for everybody who comes into contact with it.
You've pledged to audit the DA’s office. What will you be looking for?
Well, I think what's come out over the past couple of years is a long series of financial improprieties. And one of the things that I as a voter or as a citizen, always want is to trust that my government is doing the right thing for the right reasons. And one of the things I want to do is, because, look, like cynicism right now is at an all-time high with your government. I mean, nobody trusts what the government is doing. And like, maybe it's this old school Mr Smith Goes to Washington kind of idea that we should all be out there trying to do the right thing for the right reasons. And so, an audit is, and if it's done by me or Sue Rizzo or the state, I don't care. I mean, you know, these are people who we can come in, we can say, “Here's where the money came from, here's where the money is going. Here's why we're using the money to help crime fighting efforts in whatever way that is. We're not using it to line our own pockets. We're not using it to give giant bonuses to our favorite employees. We're not doing it to line the pockets of political supporters or our friends in the private sector. You know, we're doing these things for the right reasons.” So, part of the reason for the audit is to help restore and maintain trust and faith in a government agency.
And now, looking toward November, you'll not only be looking for Democratic voters, but voters of all stripes. So, will your campaign change at all?
So, I always thought my campaign was really middle of the road, you know, Democratic standard stuff. I again, understand my opponent in the Democratic primary wanted to paint me as some, you know, left wing, crunchy liberal. And I thought that was, that was really funny, because that's not really who I am. I'm about as middle of the road as Democrat can get, you know? I've been in the Marine Corps for now 24 years and so I think that as we expand towards the general election, people are going to take a good, hard look at my positions and where I've been and where I want to go, and we're going to draw support from all sides. Because, this is prosecution without politics. Let's figure out who the best person is for the job. And I have faith that the voters are going to see it's me.
