Weekend News Brief

Governor Hochul is to be officially sworn in on Sunday at 2 PM in Albany at the Empire State Plaza.  Although she has been doing the duties of Governor she will be starting her first elected term in the new year.  Hochul is the first elected female governor of New York narrowly beating out Republican challenger Lee Zeldin in the last election cycle.  The Buffalo native is expected to talk about women’s rights as she is sworn in on New Year’s Day.  

New York State Supreme Court Judge Thomas Moran ruled last week that one of the state’s strongest gun laws is unconstitutional.  The Extreme Risk Protection Order law, also known as the Red Flag law, allows law enforcement to temporarily seize a person’s guns based on someone else making a written allegation in a petition to a judge that the person poses a harm to themselves or others.  The attorney who successfully argued the unconstitutionality of the Red Flag law, Daniel Strollo, said the law allows a “very quick and easy mechanism to deprive somebody of their fundamental Second Amendment rights.” This would be the fifth time the law or parts of it have been struck down as unconstitutional. 

A new law is going into effect that will make it illegal to hurt the families of a victim of a crime by publishing, sharing or posting pictures of the victim. Bianca’s law, named after Bianca Davis who was murdered in 2019 and then her killer posted pictures of her on social media.  Those pictures were used to torment her family.  The law also prevents people who work in public service from sharing photos from crime scenes, which happened in the case of 26-year-old Caroline Wimmer.  Anyone suspected of distributing photos like these can now be charged with unlawful dissemination of a personal image, a misdemeanor.