Brooklyn DA To Be Deposed Before Election In Wrongful Conviction Lawsuit
“There has to be some mechanism in place to protect the office from the
misuse of those kinds of questions and answers,” Mr. Larkin said, adding
that they would be used by Mr. Rudin “to embarrass” Mr. Hynes. But Judge Levy said, “I don’t think it’s the court’s role to stifle speech in that way.”
Brooklyn District Attorney Charles J. Hynes
The NY Times reports:
The Brooklyn district attorney must testify under oath about allegations of misconduct in his office, just weeks before the Democratic primary, in which he is running for re-election, a federal magistrate judge ruled on Wednesday.
The ruling came in the case of Jabbar Collins, who has filed a civil rights lawsuit against the office of District Attorney Charles J. Hynes. Mr. Collins won his release after serving 16 years in prison for a murder he said he did not commit. He is seeking to prove not only that there was misconduct in his case, but also that Mr. Hynes’s office was engaged in widespread abuses that tainted other cases over a 20-year period.
The judge, Robert M. Levy, ordered Mr. Hynes to be deposed the week of Aug. 19; the primary is scheduled for Sept. 10.
A lawyer for the city, Arthur G. Larkin, argued that the judge should order Mr. Collins’s lawyer, Joel B. Rudin, to give Mr. Hynes notice of which cases he intended to ask questions about so that Mr. Hynes could refresh his memory and prepare.
“There has to be some mechanism in place to protect the office from the misuse of those kinds of questions and answers,” Mr. Larkin said, adding that they would be used by Mr. Rudin “to embarrass” Mr. Hynes.
But Judge Levy said, “I don’t think it’s the court’s role to stifle speech in that way.”…
Levy also ruled that Hynes deputy Michael Vecchione, who has previously been excoriated by federal judges for alleged misconduct, also must be deposed.
But it was all right, everything was all right, the struggle was finished. He had won the victory over himself. He loved Big Brother.
George Orwell, 1984
Posted by: Hal | June 13, 2013 at 02:32 PM