Chief Assistant District Attorney Daniel Castleman listens last week as Manhattan District Attorney Robert M. Morgenthau announces he will not seek re-election.
But a political operative familiar with Mr. Castleman’s thinking said the prosecutor probably would not run for district attorney, although reports last week said he had approached a pollster.
Mr. Morgenthau said that while rebuffing Mr. Castleman was “the most difficult decision” he had made during his 35-year career, he had to do “what’s best for the office, not what’s best for a personal friend.”
In contemplating a successor, Mr. Morgenthau said he had to “think about who is best qualified” to deal with the public and the internal workings of the office.
“It’s a judgment call and I could be wrong,” Mr. Morgenthau said, but “Mr. Inside and Mr. Outside are two different talents” – apparently casting Mr. Castleman as “Mr. Inside.”
Mr. Morgenthau’s observation was an apparent reference to 1945 Heisman Trophy winner Felix “Doc” Blanchard, a fullback dubbed Mr. Inside, and 1946 honoree Glenn Davis, a halfback who filled the role of Mr. Outside. Together they led Army to a three-year record of 27-0-1 and two national titles.
Mr. Morgenthau also alluded to his service in World War II, when he manned the inside operations of a destroyer and was asked to take the helm of the vessel. He said it “scared the hell out of me. I didn’t want to be the captain.”
Mr. Morgenthau said he would like Mr. Castleman to stay in his current position.
Although he has only served as chief assistant since May 2008, Mr. Morgenthau said that Mr. Castleman, a former investigations chief who has been in the office for almost 30 years, is an “important figure” and one in a long line of “great” chief assistants.
Mr. Morgenthau declined to say if he would back anyone to succeed him, saying he did not know whether ethical rules would permit an endorsement.
According to the New York State District Attorneys Association code of conduct for political activity, district attorneys are prohibited from endorsing candidates, and from “coercing or improperly influencing any individual into making a financial contribution to a political party or campaign committee” or engaging in political activity.
The code also bars district attorneys from misusing “their public positions for the purpose of obstructing or furthering the political activities of any political party or candidate.”
However, a 1983 opinion of the New York State Bar Association (Ethics Opinion 552) created a “limited exception” where an incumbent district attorney, like Mr. Morgenthau, is not running for re-election.
“Where there is no appearance of impropriety, there is no reason why the electorate should not have the retiring district attorney’s views as to which candidate is better or best qualified to succeed him in office,” the opinion said.
It added that any such endorsement should be based solely on the district attorney’s perception of the candidate’s qualifications, not “upon personal or partisan political considerations.”
Rumors swirled yesterday that Mr. Morgenthau planned to throw his weight behind former prosecutor Cyrus R. Vance Jr. According to published reports, Mr. Morgenthau regards Mr. Vance, 54, as the candidate best equipped to defeat former Acting Supreme Court Justice Leslie Crocker Snyder, whom Mr. Morgenthau defeated in a bitter 2005 Democratic primary. Ms. Snyder is a partner at Kasowitz Benson Torres & Friedman.
In an interview, Mr. Vance, a partner at white-collar defense firm Morvillo, Abramowitz, Grand, Iason, Anello & Bohrer and the son of former Secretary of State Cyrus R. Vance, declined to say whether he had spoken with Mr. Morgenthau about his candidacy, saying only that if he had, these conversations were “private.”
Mr. Vance and Ms. Snyder, 66, are two of three confirmed candidates for district attorney. On Friday, Richard M. Aborn, a partner in Constantine Cannon and another former assistant district attorney, joined the list of candidates.
Other possible candidates include Randy M. Mastro, a partner at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher and former federal prosecutor and deputy mayor; Rose Gill Hearn, commissioner of New York City’s Department of Investigation; and Democratic state Senator Eric T. Schneiderman, who chairs the Senate Codes Committee.
In an interview yesterday, Ms. Snyder said that Mr. Castleman “shouldn’t have counted on an insider arrangement. I believe that voters don’t respond well to inside deals and handoffs.”
She claimed that a “sitting district attorney is not allowed to endorse” a candidate.
Mr. Aborn said, “we all need to be grateful to Dan,” who “has spent the better part of his professional career seeking to make New York a safer place.”
As of January, Mr. Morgenthau had raised $778,580 and had an additional $105,298 remaining from the 2005 contest with Ms. Snyder (NYLJ, Jan. 20). He joked that he would use the money for “high living.”
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