District Attorney’s Prosecution of a Case in Which the Complainant Was a Sitting Judge Created the Appearance of Impropriety—A Special Prosecutor Should Have Handled the Case

A sitting City Court judge was the complainant in a harassment case.  A judge and a defense attorney from another county were appointed to handle the case.  The defense attorney made a motion to have a special prosecutor appointed as well because of the relationship between the District Attorney’s Office and the complainant.  That request was denied and the denial was affirmed on appeal to County Court.  The Court of Appeals, in a full-fledged opinion by Judge Pigott, reversed, finding the District Attorney’s Office’s involvement in the case created the appearance of impropriety:

Here, while we do not find that any actual impropriety occurred, there is an unacceptably great appearance of impropriety – the appearance that the District Attorney’s Office refused to accept a reduced charge because the complainant was a sitting judge who demanded that the matter go to trial, rather than because a trial was, in its own disinterested judgment, appropriate. The complainant was a City Court Judge who had the authority to preside over cases involving this District Attorney’s office, and the criminal charges were unrelated to her official position, so that her status as a judge should not have been a factor in the resolution of the case. Nor was there anything unique or unusual about the charges, since they involved communications between two people who had formerly been in an intimate relationship – a scenario frequently seen in harassment cases. However, despite protracted and repeated plea negotiations, the District Attorney’s office did not offer defendant a reduced charge or agree to a plea that included a favorable sentence, such as an ACD, community service, or the like. While this alone would not be enough to raise an appearance of impropriety, there are other aspects of the record that do. Defendant’s original counsel from the Public Defender’s office, who had represented defendants in cases involving this District Attorney’s office for more than a decade, averred that he had never before seen the office take such a hard-line position in a case involving comparable charges and a similar defendant. Although provided ample opportunity to respond, the District Attorney’s office replied with nothing more than conclusory denials, failing to rebut the allegations with even a single example of a comparable case it had similarly refused to resolve with an ACD or a plea to a violation. Because the District Attorney’s office failed to take steps to dispel the appearance of inappropriate disparate treatment, we conclude that this is one of those rare cases in which a significant appearance of impropriety was created, requiring disqualification.  People v Adams, 47, CtApp 3-28-13