District attorney discusses the future of his office
NORWICH – After 19 years and a half years of serving Chenango County, District Attorney Joseph McBride is scheduled to become a New York State Supreme Court justice, with First Assistant District Attorney Michael Ferrarese set to take the reigns.
After receiving the last of the absentee ballots Monday night, McBride is now officially scheduled to become a New York State Supreme Court Justice on January 1.
"I'm ready to move on to the next step in my career, and I look forward to serving the community – making sure the community's needs in supreme court get handled in a fair and efficient way," said McBride. "I'm going to be assigned to Tompkins County and Chenango County, but I won't officially start until January."
He said it's important that Chenango County keep the supreme court seat, and have someone to fill it from the area. He added that when that time comes, by law the first assistant district attorney becomes acting district attorney for the remainder of the term.
"In professional lives there comes a time to hand the baton to somebody else, and its my pleasure to hand the baton to Mr. Ferrarese," said McBride.
He said Ferrarese has a long history of working with the district attorney's office, an excellent work ethic, a good sense of justice, and he believes the office is going to be fine with Ferrarese in charge regardless of the obstacles.
When asked about the challenges the district attorney's office may face in January, Ferrarese said, "We are well aware of the obstacles that we face, we have to be able to cover 27 town and village courts, a city court, and a county court."
He said there is and will be no shortage of responsibility with cases are still coming in, but currently with the help of McBride and attorney Adam Spence the district attorney's office has things under control.
"I've been with the office and worked directly under Joe for eight years, and I've tried to learn as much as I could from him in that time," said Ferrarese. "He is a great attorney, and has been an excellent mentor."
McBride said looking back on his career as district attorney, there have been numerous cases tried and won by the office, but one in particular has always stood out to him.
"I've handled many memorable cases but one of the cases, the Ford case, was extraordinary," said McBride. "In that case the gentleman killed his babysitter and we happened to catch him using the GPS device that his wife put in the truck – because she thought he was having an affair."
McBride said he recalls sitting at Gus Macker watching his kids play basketball when a detective reached out to him about a weird death that had been reported.
"The detective said, 'something weird has happened, a poor girl has been killed and the guy's story doesn't make sense,'" he said. "So we went up there and suddenly the defendant wouldn't get out of his car, and there were all kinds of issues with his story."
He said law enforcement knew was that the defendant wasn't telling the truth, and later that day the defendant's wife reached out to them and asked if they had reviewed the GPS she placed in his truck.
"Eventually we got the GPS and that showed us where he had gone, which was in contradiction to where he said he had gone," said McBride. "He spent about three hours up there, leaving the cabin in one direction and slowly looking for the girl who had gotten away."
McBride said the GPS eventually showed the defendant driving at 1.2 miles per hour, which is when they believe he killed her.
"That was a case where we never could have proven the murder without that GPS evidence, we would have known something bad had happened and that he was responsible, but we couldn't have proven it," he said. "Fortunately we had that evidence, and he was convicted for 25 to life – hopefully he remains there for the rest of his life."
McBride said trials like Ford's demonstrate how certain factors can be out of an attorney's hands throughout a case and some of the stresses that come with being a trial lawyer.
"If you can imagine its like running a play when we're doing a trial," he said. "No matter how many times you do your rehearsals for that play, the play never really comes out that well – something is always different."
McBride said trial lawyers always need to be ready for the curveballs that can be thrown in court, and that's one of the reasons he's enjoyed doing it for over 35 years.
Pictured: First Assistant District Attorney Michael Ferrarese and District Attorney Joseph McBride after discussing the future of Chenango County's District Attorney's Office. (Zachary Meseck Photo)
After receiving the last of the absentee ballots Monday night, McBride is now officially scheduled to become a New York State Supreme Court Justice on January 1.
"I'm ready to move on to the next step in my career, and I look forward to serving the community – making sure the community's needs in supreme court get handled in a fair and efficient way," said McBride. "I'm going to be assigned to Tompkins County and Chenango County, but I won't officially start until January."
He said it's important that Chenango County keep the supreme court seat, and have someone to fill it from the area. He added that when that time comes, by law the first assistant district attorney becomes acting district attorney for the remainder of the term.
"In professional lives there comes a time to hand the baton to somebody else, and its my pleasure to hand the baton to Mr. Ferrarese," said McBride.
He said Ferrarese has a long history of working with the district attorney's office, an excellent work ethic, a good sense of justice, and he believes the office is going to be fine with Ferrarese in charge regardless of the obstacles.
When asked about the challenges the district attorney's office may face in January, Ferrarese said, "We are well aware of the obstacles that we face, we have to be able to cover 27 town and village courts, a city court, and a county court."
He said there is and will be no shortage of responsibility with cases are still coming in, but currently with the help of McBride and attorney Adam Spence the district attorney's office has things under control.
"I've been with the office and worked directly under Joe for eight years, and I've tried to learn as much as I could from him in that time," said Ferrarese. "He is a great attorney, and has been an excellent mentor."
McBride said looking back on his career as district attorney, there have been numerous cases tried and won by the office, but one in particular has always stood out to him.
"I've handled many memorable cases but one of the cases, the Ford case, was extraordinary," said McBride. "In that case the gentleman killed his babysitter and we happened to catch him using the GPS device that his wife put in the truck – because she thought he was having an affair."
McBride said he recalls sitting at Gus Macker watching his kids play basketball when a detective reached out to him about a weird death that had been reported.
"The detective said, 'something weird has happened, a poor girl has been killed and the guy's story doesn't make sense,'" he said. "So we went up there and suddenly the defendant wouldn't get out of his car, and there were all kinds of issues with his story."
He said law enforcement knew was that the defendant wasn't telling the truth, and later that day the defendant's wife reached out to them and asked if they had reviewed the GPS she placed in his truck.
"Eventually we got the GPS and that showed us where he had gone, which was in contradiction to where he said he had gone," said McBride. "He spent about three hours up there, leaving the cabin in one direction and slowly looking for the girl who had gotten away."
McBride said the GPS eventually showed the defendant driving at 1.2 miles per hour, which is when they believe he killed her.
"That was a case where we never could have proven the murder without that GPS evidence, we would have known something bad had happened and that he was responsible, but we couldn't have proven it," he said. "Fortunately we had that evidence, and he was convicted for 25 to life – hopefully he remains there for the rest of his life."
McBride said trials like Ford's demonstrate how certain factors can be out of an attorney's hands throughout a case and some of the stresses that come with being a trial lawyer.
"If you can imagine its like running a play when we're doing a trial," he said. "No matter how many times you do your rehearsals for that play, the play never really comes out that well – something is always different."
McBride said trial lawyers always need to be ready for the curveballs that can be thrown in court, and that's one of the reasons he's enjoyed doing it for over 35 years.
Pictured: First Assistant District Attorney Michael Ferrarese and District Attorney Joseph McBride after discussing the future of Chenango County's District Attorney's Office. (Zachary Meseck Photo)
dived wound factual legitimately delightful goodness fit rat some lopsidedly far when.
Slung alongside jeepers hypnotic legitimately some iguana this agreeably triumphant pointedly far
jeepers unscrupulous anteater attentive noiseless put less greyhound prior stiff ferret unbearably cracked oh.
So sparing more goose caribou wailed went conveniently burned the the the and that save that adroit gosh and sparing armadillo grew some overtook that magnificently that
Circuitous gull and messily squirrel on that banally assenting nobly some much rakishly goodness that the darn abject hello left because unaccountably spluttered unlike a aurally since contritely thanks