On the face of it, these are merely two motions by the District Attorney for orders restoring two cases to the Trial Calendar and precluding them from admission to the Operation Midway Program. However, the broader thrust of these applications is the claim by the District Attorney that before the Administrative Judge of the County Court, in the exercise of his discretion, may consider a defendant for Operation Midway, the ‘consent’ of the District Attorney is required.
For a genuine understanding of what is at stake, a history of Operation Midway-type diversion programs is clearly in order. The following background emerges from a scholarly article by a Professor of Law at the University of Chicago and Co-director of the Center for Studies in Criminal Justice, as it appeared in Vol. 41, pp. 224–225, 238, Number 2, Winter 1974 of the University of Chicago Law Review. ‘In 1967 the Vera Institute of Justice established the Manhattan Court Employment Project to divert criminal defendants after their arraignment on felony or misdemeanor charges into a program of group therapy and employment counseling. If a defendant succeeds in a program and obtains a job, his pending criminal charges are dismissed. The goals of this innovative program are eloquently stated in the Vera Institute’s ten year report: