When Mayor Eric Adams appointed Lynelle Maginley-Liddie in December 2023 to lead the city's Correction Department, he said “she has played a central role in the progress we have made" in bringing down violence on Rikers Island.

What You Need To Know

  • The city suggested the current correction commissioner to be the person in charge of complying with a court order to overhaul the Rikers Island jail complex

  • The Legal Aid Society wants an independent federal receiver to oversee compliance with court-ordered reforms

  • The federal judge could put Rikers under federal receivership

Now, his administration is proposing a new role for Maginley-Liddie: compliance director, which would be in charge of the court-ordered overhaul of Rikers and the rest of the city's jail system.

The case could put the city's dysfunctional and violent jail system under federal control.  

"This is a person who has no correctional experience outside of this toxic agency," Kayla Simpson, staff attorney at Legal Aid Society said. She is part of the legal team representing detainees who sued the city. 

She believes Maginley-Liddie, once a lawyer for the Correction Department, is the wrong person to be in charge of finally putting a stop to the violence in city jails.

"The independent piece is the most critical part of this structure," Simpson said. "You have to have someone who answers to the court and the court alone."

The city Correction Department defended the proposal in a statement, "In her tenure, both the Federal Monitor and the Court have recognized Commissioner Maginley-Liddie’s commitment to reform, collaboration, and transparency," the statement said. "The proposal is focused on maintaining and accelerating the Commissioner’s sustained progress to create safer more secure facilities for staff and those in our care."

In the court papers, attorneys for the city defended the appointment of a jails insider to oversee the turnaround instead of an outsider. 

"The commissioner is far better suited than a federal receiver to marshal the voluntary cooperation of thousands of people, working within several city agencies, within a pre-existing web of statutes, rules, regulations and contracts," the city's attorneys wrote in court papers.

The Legal Aid Society instead proposed an independent receiver who would answer to the court, while still collaborating with the DOC commissioner.

"If you're going to disrupt that political ecosystem you have to have someone outside of it," Simpson said.

Under the city's proposal, Maginley-Liddie would serve a five-year term as compliance director, and could only be removed by the court, not the mayor.