Charles J. (Joe) Hynes, DA of Kings County (Brooklyn), New York, an NDAA board member and a veteran investigator and prosecutor of high-profile cases—both as a DA and as a special state prosecutor—is engaged in one of the most sensitive investigations of his career. The subject: corruption in the New York State judicial system, including indications that judgeships can be “bought” from political leaders, and that some judges have accepted illegal gifts from lawyers. DA Hynes says that exposing judicial corruption has become his personal crusade. The New York Times reported that the series of events set in motion by Hynes and a King’s County grand jury “could end up overhauling the methods long used to pick judges in New York State.”
When Vincent P. Sarubbi was appointed Camden County (New Jersey) prosecutor last year by the governor, he realized that his new job would be much different than private practice. But as a story in the Philadelphia Inquirer pointed out, “He never figured it would be like this.” In his first year, Sarubbi, a former trial attorney: won a murder conviction against a rabbi who had murdered his wife; took control of the struggling Camden Police Department under a state mandate; arrested a superior court judge on charges involving child pornography; charged a lawyer with stealing $1.2 million from a man suffering from autism; prosecuted a couple who pleaded guilty to charges involving their suburban sex dungeon; and filed charges against a driver accused of fumbling for his crack pipe and then killing a nun with his car. On his first anniversary as prosecutor, an 18-year-old youth and two teenaged boys, all heavily armed, were accused of planning a shooting rampage near a suburban high school, and 24 hours later, police discovered four bodies in a murder suicide. Sarubbi told the Inquirer: “I knew there would be challenges (but) I didn’t realize they’d come this often.”
When Mark D. Hurlbert was appointed DA of Colorado’s Fifth Judicial District late in 2002, little could he imagine that eight months later he would become a household name, fencing with the national news media every day, receiving death threats to himself and his family and facing a formidable high-ticket defense team. That’s what happened when Hurlbert decided to file sexual assault charges against NBA superstar Kobe Bryant, based on accusations of an employee of the hotel where Bryant was staying, and evidence that Hurlbert declined to describe. A story in The New York Times reported that while Bryant’s defense could cost him millions, Hurlbert, meanwhile, “divvies up $2 million annually among 11 deputy DAs” in his largely rural four-county jurisdiction. Although most of Hurlbert’s law schoolmates went on to high-paying jobs in Denver law firms, Hurlbert, who had worked in the DA’s office and in a legal aid clinic while attending law school, decided to become a prosecutor, because, he told The New York Times, “It’s the government standing up for the little guy. I just knew that’s what I wanted to do.”
Bob Macy prevails. One of Macy’s last campaigns before the former NDAA president retired as longtime and legendary DA of Oklahoma County, Oklahoma, was to have Oklahoma City bombing conspirator Terry Nichols tried for capital murder in a state court in Oklahoma. Nichols had already been convicted of manslaughter in a federal court in Denver for his role in the 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building, and is serving a life term in prison. Timothy McVeigh, mastermind of the plot, was convicted of murder at the federal trial and was executed in June 2001. After a lengthy debate in the state legislature and the courts, an Oklahoma district judge has agreed that Nichols can be tried in Oklahoma. Bob Macy and his successors contended that a state murder conviction would guard against the chance that Nichols might successfully appeal his federal conviction and gain freedom. The U.S. Supreme Court has already rejected a Nichols appeal in which he argued that a state trial amounts to double jeopardy. In the federal trial, McVeigh and Nichols were charged with the deaths of eight federal employees. In the Oklahoma state trial, Nichols is charged with the deaths of the 160 other victims.
Victor S. (Torry) Johnson III, district attorney general of Tennessee’s 20th Judicial District (Nashville) and a member of the NDAA Board of Directors, is the 2003 recipient of the National Children’s Alliance Professional Leadership Award, presented in recognition of his work in establishing the Nashville Child Advocacy Center and for his many other contributions to the safety and welfare of children in his jurisdiction.
Nola T. Foulston, DA of Sedgwick County (Wichita) Kansas, and her chief deputy, Kim Parker, received the Trial Award for Outstanding Advocacy in Capital Cases 2002/2003 from the Board of Directors of the Association of Government Attorneys in Capital Litigation at the organization’s 24th annual summer conference in New Orleans in August. DA Foulston is a member of the NDAA Board of Directors. DA Foulston also received mention in her local newspaper, the Wichita Eagle, for her induction into NDAA’s new and informal Home Run Hitters’ Club, recognizing members for outstanding achievements. A Louisville Slugger bat goes with the membership. “I’m not a violent person,” Foulston told the newspaper, “and I don’t know how to play baseball, but I’m proud of it (the bat) as an award.”
Lawyers, legal experts, reporters and others who witnessed the summation by State’s Attorney Jonathan C. Benedict in the high-profile murder trial last year of Michael Skakel in Bridgeport, Connecticut (for the 1975 slaying of a neighbor, Martha Moxley), called it one of the most eloquent and powerful closing arguments they had ever heard. Skakel was convicted and is serving 20 years to life in prison. More recently, in an article in The Atlantic Monthly magazine, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., a second cousin of Skakel, contended that Skakel was innocent, that evidence pointed to another person and that Benedict had ignored exculpatory evidence. In his reply, prosecutor Benedict was brief and to the point, declaring, in part: “That Michael Skakel and his family are bewildered and angered at the conviction is hardly surprising. From the very night of this horrible crime they conducted themselves in the expectation that he would get away with murder. Thankfully, the state of Connecticut was able to thwart that expectation in a case tried fairly and fully.”
When a New Jersey resident, John Nathan, licked an envelope to return a letter to Seattle police, he provided police and King County (Seattle) DA Norm Maleng’s office with the DNA evidence they needed to break a 21-year-old Seattle rape/murder case. Police, who had considered Nathan a suspect in the rape/murder, sent the letter on city stationery with some innocuous documents unrelated to the case which did not identify police as the sender, requesting Nathan to sign and return the documents. After Nathan signed and mailed back the documents, DNA from the envelope flap was found to match DNA found on the body of the 13-year-old girl victim. Seattle and Bergen County, NJ detectives then arrested Nathan on a first-degree murder charge. Timothy A. Bradshaw, the King County lead prosecutor in the case, called the arrest of Nathan the product of “stubborn investigators, 21st century forensics, ingenuity and creativity—a winning formula.”
The Wisconsin District Attorneys Association has named William Bedker, an assistant Dodge County DA, Prosecutor of the Year for 2003. Among his accomplishments, Bedker has a 100 percent conviction record from May 2002 through May 2003. Among those were defendants convicted of attempted homicide whose cases were tried simultaneously before two separate juries. Bedker credits his success to his attendance at the Trial Advocacy II and Pre-Trial Advocacy courses at NDAA’s Ernest F. Hollings National Advocacy Center.
Kenneth R. Bruno, Rensselaer County (New York) DA, has resigned to go to work for the New York State’s top lobbying firm in Albany, the state’s capital. In a newspaper interview, he said he did not expect to lobby the state senate, where his father, Joseph L. Bruno, is majority (Republican) leader, because of restrictions, but that he can lobby the state assembly and the governor’s office.
Adams County (Colorado) DA Robert S. Grant is appealing a trial judge’s rejection of a death sentence of a convicted kidnapper, rapist and murderer—converting the sentence to life in prison without the possibility of parole—because one or more of the jurors may have read biblical passages during deliberations in the penalty phase of the trial. The judge said the Bible was an undue influence because the passages that were read included Leviticus 24:20-21, which, among other things, calls for “eye for eye, tooth for tooth” and states, “Whoever kills a man shall be put to death.” DA Grant, a 27-year prosecutor, contended that the jurors were not discussing facts or the law, but struggling with a moral decision, for which the Bible was a proper reference.
Charles Sherman, prosecuting attorney of Michigan’s Clinton County (St. Johns), is the new president of the Michigan Prosecuting Attorneys Association. Stuart J. Dunnings, III, prosecuting attorney of Ingham County (Lansing), is president-elect; Ronald Frantz, prosecuting attorney of Ottawa County (Grand Haven), is vice president, and David Gorcyca, prosecuting attorney of Oakland County (Pontiac), is secretary-treasurer. James Gregart, prosecuting attorney of Kalamazoo County, Michigan, has been re-elected as Midwestern Region representative to the National Criminal Justice Association Advisory Council, which develops policies to address criminal justice problems.
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