The Appeals Bureau is responsible for all appellate advocacy and serves as a legal department and research center for all of the Office's assistant district attorneys. Attorneys in the Appeals Bureau help trial attorneys in the office fashion legal arguments, research case precedents and answer complex questions of law. They also advise senior staff members on policy matters that have legal considerations and on legislative proposals and freedom of information law requests. But the lion's share of their work is writing briefs on points of law contested after trial and making those arguments in the State and Federal appellate courts.
The Bureau is staffed with seasoned appellate attorneys adept at identifying trial and legal issues, as well as at serving as advisers to trial counsel and acting as aggressive advocates for the Office's legal positions in the handling of its appellate cases.
Additionally, the Appeals Bureau is staffed with junior assistants who are assigned on a temporary basis in order to hone their legal research and writing skills and to enhance their base of legal knowledge. They participate in a structured training program specifically tailored to the needs of the Appeals Bureau and the handling of appellate work.
Each junior assistant is also paired with a senior assistant who closely supervises and edits all briefs. The brief writing process proceeds from outline form through a series of edits, performed first under the supervision of a team leader and ultimately the Bureau Chief, before the final product is submitted to the Court. In addition, the Bureau regularly schedules moot courts to give its assistants a dry run in oral argument on appeal and questions that may be raised by the judges before whom they will argue. Junior assistants who show potential to become talented appellate attorneys are now put in an intensive mentor program in which they are paired with a senior assistant who provides one-on-one training in legal research, analysis and writing.
As a result of these efforts, our appellate briefs are well researched and written and our oral arguments have won praise from many appellate judges. The quality of the Bureau's advocacy has helped ensure that the appellate courts fashion legal rules that will not only have a fair and equitable application to the case at hand, but to the criminal justice system as a whole.
The Bureau has also filed amicus curiae briefs, both in the Appellate Division and the Court of Appeals, in cases that involve issues with a potentially broad impact on the administration of justice in Queens County, as well as throughout the state.
The Appeals Bureau has also litigated two cases in the Supreme Court of the United States: Portuondo v. Agard and Artuz v. Bennett. In both cases, the Bureau represented the interests of prosecutor across the country, and has gained national recognition for its efforts. In Agard, the Bureau won the right, on behalf of all prosecutors, to comment to a jury on a defendant's unique advantage at trial to hear all other witnesses before testifying. In Bennett, the Bureau sought to limit repetitive litigation after conviction by enforcing Congress's one-year time limitation on post -appeal motions and actions.
The Bureau's role as a legal advisor to the rest of the office is also an essential part of its mission. Appeals assistants act as liaisons with other bureaus in the office and regularly provide legal advice and guidance on difficult issues that arise during the course of investigations and prosecutions.
