BALLSTON SPA — Saratoga County Court Judge James A. Murphy III dealt several setbacks to prosecutors in the Saratoga Springs shootout case Friday.
Murphy denied the district attorney office’s effort to block a request by the lawyer representing Vito Caselnova, the Vermont deputy charged with attempted murder, from getting information, including an interview transcript of a second grand juror who has concerns about the first juror who came forward who complained about the indictment process.
Murphy homed in on assistant district attorneys Al Poremba and John Latella’s reasoning for withholding the information, ruling that defense attorney Greg Teresi must have the transcript — just as he has a letter from another grand juror who came forward to the Commissioner of Jurors on March 31 saying “we rushed through our decision with little thought after hearing many days of complicated evidence.”
Murphy said it was only fair and constitutional that Teresi have that information.
“He has been charged with attempted murder,” Murphy said, referring to Caselnova. “The juror has identified certain things that he believes went well or didn’t or wanted to tell of his experience to the district attorney. But yet you, saying you want to be transparent, have not turned that over to Mr. Teresi. I find that very, very concerning to me. It involves his client … I don’t know what basis the district attorney had the authority to do that. But you still haven’t turned it over. Why?”
The reply from Poremba and Latella was that the second juror came forward because of news reports about the first juror. After he was pressed again by Murphy, Poremba said it did not provide protection for the juror and would require them to redact the interview.
Murphy said the name, address and phone number of the juror can be redacted. “We redact him,” Murphy said. “Now, why…
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