When the prosecution of ex-FBI agent Lindley DeVecchio for being the inside man for mobster Gregory Scarpa collapsed during the testimony of Scarpa’s former girlfriend, Linda Schirro, it made the prosecution look bad.  Really bad.  And when the prosecution looks bad, somebody has to pay.  Linda Schirro just become “somebody”.

But who can you get to guarantee that the target gets nailed?  Ladies and gentlemen, I would like you all to give a warm welcome to Leslie Crocker Snyder, fresh from her 6 month engagement in New Orleans.  According to the New York Times, former Acting Supreme Court Judge Snyder has been appointed “special prosecutor” by Brooklyn Administrative Judge Neil Firetog.

The Brooklyn district attorney, Charles J. Hynes, requested the appointment to avoid “the appearance of impropriety.”

This is one of the funniest lines ever printed in the Times.  Appointing Leslie to “avoid” the appearance of impropriety?  Leslie is the embodiment of prosecutorial impropriety.  Leslie Crocker Snyder, who slinked away from the New York law scene after an embarrassing loss for District Attorney to Robert Morganthau, comes to the game with perhaps the most overwhelming resume as a prosecutor that anyone could claim. 

The only problem is that she amassed her prosecutorial vitae while a sitting judge.  For this, she is a legend.  When you needed a warrant signed, you went to Leslie.  When you had a case that any other judge would toss, you made sure it got assigned to Leslie.  When you wanted to get a defendant to rat and feared that his lawyer would be a problem, you secretly asked Leslie to invent something called “shadow counsel” to fundamentally subvert the Constitution.

Leslie Crocker Snyder was nothing if not imaginative.  She found ways to prosecute from the bench that no judge before her had even dreamed about.  The avenging angel of the bench, it wasn’t enough to sentence defendants to multiple centuries in prison (just in case), but she had to attack, humiliate, demean them as well.  To the point where she had a full-time security detail to drive her around town in a city-owned car.  You see, Leslie needed protection to the tune of a few hundred thousand dollars a year to preserve her right to spew venom and enrage defendants to the point of threatening her life.  Too bad for all the children who might have enjoyed health care, but wasn’t it more important to spend money to protect Leslie’s right to spew?

So why now?  Well, there’s another District Attorney race a’coming, and Leslie’s name hasn’t been in the paper in a long time.  She wants to be the District Attorney.  It’s what she’s always wanted to be.  And, in all fairness, I’ve spent some quality time with Leslie, having had numerous cases before her.  When I was interviewed by Mike Wallace for a 60 Minutes piece on Leslie Crocker Snyder, I said that I would support her for anything, other than judge.  Judge Snyder thinks that I’m the devil.  Me? I think she is a tad harsh, but then I’m the devil, right?

But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t know a little something about her.  And poor Linda Schirro, who is so destined to be slaughtered for embarrassing Joe Hynes, doesn’t have a shot in hell.   While I have no clue whether she perjured herself or not, there can be no doubt what the outcome of this “investigation” is going to be. 

Unless, of course, Leslie finds some benefit to exonerating Schirro to shed her image as the Hanging Judge for her upcoming campaign.  After all, only yesterday did Leslie send out an email to all her supporting telling them of her epiphany (at the expense of her arch-enemy and competitor, former Westchester County District Attorney Jeanine Pirro) that she is no longer for the death penalty.  Of course, it helps that New York no longer has a death penalty.

Personally, I am so glad that Leslie Crocker Snyder is back in the game.  There are so many important issues to discuss, and no one better to make a point of what’s wrong with the criminal justice system than Leslie.  Ahem, I meant Judge Snyder.  I didn’t mean to be disrespectful.