From the Daily News:During the recent hearing that led to an order for a new trial in a murder case, I kept hearing about big troubles at the Queens district attorney's office.
Starting with DA Richard Brown ailing and turning over much of the work in an operation that handles 70,000 cases a year over to his chief of trials, James Quinn.
And that was the reason Quinn, in an attempt to stop the setbacks at his office, had decided to personally try the hearing where Tejpal Singh successfully fought his murder conviction.
Daily News reporter Greg Smith did an expose last year citing a half dozen shaky Queens convictions being challenged.
Last year, Kareem Bellamy was freed after doing 14 years for murder when Queens Acting Supreme Court Justice Joel Blumenfeld overturned his conviction, citing new evidence. Bellamy filed suit last month for prosecutorial misconduct.
The State Court of Appeals recently ruled 5-0 to uphold another Blumenfeld ruling, that Queens prosecutors’ practice of grilling suspects before arraignment without attorneys was unethical.
Now courthouse sources were telling me that Brown, 79, had Parkinson's disease.
