City Seeks New Judge In A Busch Retrial

Lawyers for New York City have asked federal Judge Sterling Johnson to recuse himself if there is a new civil trial in the shooting of Gidone Busch in 1999. In a rare ruling last month, Johnson vacated a 2003 jury verdict in favor of five police officers involved in the incident that led to Busch’s death, calling it a “miscarriage of justice.”
Corporation Counsel Michael Cardozo said a letter sent by Busch’s mother, Doris Busch Boskey, after the trial that was not submitted to the city for examination was a “clear violation of well-established procedures.” The letter called evidence at the trial “a perversion of the truth.”
In papers submitted to Brooklyn Federal Court, the city’s lawyers asked Johnson to vacate the order, allow an appeal or exclude himself from future proceedings because his ruling included “strong statements … regarding the credibility and veracity of defendants and witnesses, raising an appearance of impropriety in a second trial.”
The Busch family’s lawyer, Myron Beldock, said it was “presumptuous for the city’s lawyers to claim that Judge Johnson relied on Mrs. Boskey’s letter.”