Posted by GET NY on 11:12:54 03/28/05
House rules
03/28/05
It's basic jurisprudence that district attorneys must enforce all the laws, but two of the city's prosecutors are ignoring a statute that applies directly to the operation of their offices. Brooklyn's Joe Hynes and Richard Brown of Queens have chosen to disregard a rule that says all their lawyers must live in the city.
That restriction has been on the books since 1950 - with one exception. In 1962, the Legislature exempted the Manhattan district attorney. Despite the law, more than a third of the assistant DAs working in Brooklyn and Queens abide elsewhere, according to both offices. Aides to Bronx DA Robert Johnson and Staten Island DA Dan Donovan said they require all prosecutors to live in the five boroughs.
Brown said most newly hired assistants live in the city, but some move to the suburbs after several years on the job. At that point, he said, it makes more sense to keep trained, experienced prosecutors on the payroll rather than replace them with rookies out of law school. And Brown and Hynes both said they believe the residency requirement would not survive legal challenge because Manhattan prosecutors have been exempted.
Perhaps, but the law is still on the books, as plain as day and observed in two boroughs. What's more, the courts have enforced similar residency laws covering the counties outside the city. In one instance, an upstate judge disqualified a nonresident prosecutor from handling a case.
Hynes, of all people, should be sensitive to hewing to the legalities of residency. He was, after all, the prosecutor who tried Brooklyn political activist John O'Hara three times, eventually slamming him with a felony conviction for voting from an apartment that was not his primary residence. Turns out the assistant DA on the case, John O'Mara, lives not in the city, and not even in the state. He's a resident of New Jersey. Beautiful.
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