When this district attorney of 30 years stepped down, the eyewitnesses from McKinley's case came forward and said that they had been pressured into testifying by the district attorneys, pressure which included the threat of jail time.
These public defenders receive around 30 percent less funding than district attorneys do, and they often have caseloads far outnumbering what the American Bar Association recommends.
When I was an assistant D.A., and when I was a federal prosecutor, I looked at the cases in front of me, and I generally made decisions based on my instinct and my experience.
We presented our proposals to the state Department of Corrections commissioner and to the Manhattan DA, at our graduation in a packed Columbia auditorium.
I worked with my colleague, public policy professor Angela Hawken, and our team first created a visual dashboard for DAs to see and better understand the prosecution process.
Unless you feel like explaining to the press that your own assistant district attorney was the brilliant mastermind behind tonight's hostage crisis. 