The Queens Jogger Case Raises Concerns About Links Between Prosecutors and Judges

The man convicted of murdering Queens jogger Karina Vetrano is scheduled to be sentenced this week after he was found guilty for the 2016 killing. But throughout the case, defense attorneys and court watchers have raised concerns about the judge presiding over the case, and his impartiality.

Justice Michael Aloise presided over both of Chanel Lewis' trials, and made several controversial decisions during each case. He quickly called a mistrial on the first case after the jury deliberated for just over a day; he declined to pause the second trial when the defense received an anonymous letter claiming that police had wrongly targeted Lewis in a DNA dragnet that only tested black men; and at least one juror in the second trial told reporters that the jury felt pressured by Aloise to return a guilty verdict on the day of closing arguments. And topping it all off, Aloise on multiple occasions wore a purple tie in the courtroom—a sign that many observers took as supporting the Vetrano family.

While this may seem like an extreme case, court watchers say that's not out of the ordinary in the Queens County Courthouse. In his years covering the city's courts, New York Law Journal reporter Colby Hamilton has found that the Queens Supreme Court stands out for its particularly close links to the Queens District Attorney's Office: many of the sitting judges has family members serving as prosecutors (including Justice Aloise), and many of those same judges started off working for the Queens DA's office (including Justice Aloise). As Hamilton told WNYC's Jami Floyd, those links can create the appearance of impropriety when it comes to judges' roles as impartial arbiters of the law.

"Here in Queens, you have a system that's been in place three decades, going through some of the most horrific time periods of crime in the city in recent memory," Hamilton said. "And there's a concern that some of the practices that animated that office and the judges...they still have a part of themselves that is part of that culture that people now are looking at and saying 'that's old. That's out of step with a more fair and more just criminal justice system.'"

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