Bruce Green was quoted in an Associated Press article about New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman’s investigation into Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance’s handling of a sex abuse case involving film producer Harvey Weinstein.
New York’s governor put unusual — and potentially problematic — pressure on Manhattan’s district attorney to bring a criminal case against Harvey Weinstein this week when he ordered the state’s attorney general to investigate the prosecutor’s handling of an earlier sex abuse probe involving the film producer, legal experts said.
On Monday, Gov. Andrew Cuomo, the state’s most powerful Democrat, directed Attorney General Eric Schneiderman to look into whether Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance, Jr. bungled a 2015 investigation in which a model accused Weinstein of groping her breast. Vance decided not to bring charges in the case, citing a lack of proof.
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“Prosecutors are accountable to electorate — if they do a bad job they get voted out. Their discretion on cases is not meant to be questioned by other elected officials,” said Bruce Green, a law professor at Fordham University. “To me, there’s something problematic about the attorney general looking over the shoulder of a D.A., and then reporting it to the governor.”