Residency Justice for District Attorneys

Residency Justice for District Attorneys

Queens District Attorney Dick Brown is energetically pushing a bill that would allow Assistant DAs in his office and those in The Bronx, Brooklyn and Staten Island to live outside the city, placing them on equal footing with those in Manhattan.

Frankly, the only surprising thing about this measure is that the disparity has existed for the past 45 years.

While a case might be made for special treatment, given the cost of living in Manhattan, if ADAs were required to live in the borough where they worked, that isn't the case. And so if Manhattan prosecutors have the freedom to live anywhere in the state, there is no justification for restricting those in the other boroughs to living in the city.

As matters currently stand, DA Brown estimates that about 100 of his 300 ADAs are living in the suburbs because of special exemptions that he granted them. Clearly he has concluded that it's necessary in order to retain high-caliber staffers - many of whom look to the suburbs once they marry and start families - beyond the three-year period when they are committed to working in his office as a condition of being hired.

If state officials deemed this privilege appropriate for those in the Manhattan DA's Office, there's no reason why equal treatment should not be given to ADAs in the other boroughs.