ALBANY – An appeals panel has barred an upstate district attorney from prosecuting a man whose case he had presided over in his former role as the county court judge.

“A defendant in a criminal case should not find himself…in the unenviable position of being prosecuted by the former judge who had earlier presided over the case,” Justice John Egan Jr. (See Profile) of the Appellate Division, Third Department, wrote for the unanimous panel in Czajka v. Koweek, 514623.