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New Judge Assigned to Decide on Releasing Eric Garner Grand Jury Evidence

By Nicholas Rizzi | December 19, 2014 4:56pm | Updated on December 22, 2014 8:52am
 Judge William Garnett — an acting justice in Brooklyn and former assistant DA in Staten Island — has been assigned to decide whether to release more information on the Eric Garner grand jury proceedings.
Judge William Garnett — an acting justice in Brooklyn and former assistant DA in Staten Island — has been assigned to decide whether to release more information on the Eric Garner grand jury proceedings.
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New York Daily News

STATEN ISLAND — A new judge has been appointed to decide whether to release information from the Eric Garner grand jury, after the previous judge on the case stepped aside this week.

Judge William Garnett — an acting justice in Brooklyn and former assistant district attorney in Staten Island — was appointed to take the place of Judge Stephen Rooney, who recused himself from the case on Wednesday, a spokeswoman for the New York's courts said.

Garnett, who was appointed as a criminal court judge in 1991, will make a decision on a motion filed by lawyers for Public Advocate Letitia James, the New York Civil Liberties Union and the Legal Aid Society to unseal evidence and testimony from the grand jury.

A hearing on the motion was originally scheduled for Friday, but it was pushed back to January after Rooney stepped aside.

Rooney decided he could not hear the case because his wife is on the board of Richmond University Medical Center. The hospital employed the four EMS personnel who responded to the scene of Garner's arrest and were suspended from duty after video showed them lending little aide to Garner.

While Rooney said his wife's work with the hospital was never a problem before, he worried the public might see it as a conflict of interest.

"It's never been an issue," Rooney said during Wednesday's hearing. "In this case, given the heightened scrutiny of the media, I fear it might be."

He could not say if the EMS workers testified in front of the grand jury or not.

After the grand jury voted not to indict NYPD Officer Daniel Pantaleo in the chokehold death of Garner, who was being arrested for selling untaxed cigarettes earlier this year when he died, Rooney released limited information about the proceedings at the behest of District Attorney Dan Donovan.