While the alleged sexual assault at Cornell University has ignited intense public debate, this much is beyond meaningful dispute: Tompkins County District Attorney Matthew Van Houten had to go. And although New York Governor Kathy Hochul was right to seek a replacement prosecutor, she has made a grievous mistake with the appointment of Attorney General Letitia James.
Van Houten thoroughly botched the initial investigation of an allegation by a Cornell student, “Jane Doe,” that she was raped by seven men in a fraternity house in October 2024. As Van Houten has acknowledged, he based his initial non-prosecution decision entirely on one document: a six-page summary of a statement that Jane Doe gave to the Cornell University Police Department in November 2024.
That’s it; that’s everything Van Houten considered. He did not obtain the transcript of Jane Doe’s statement, which differs in notable respects from the summary. The DA never sought to interview Jane Doe. He did not speak with any of the accused men or other witnesses. He made no effort to obtain texts or Snapchat messages or emails or surveillance videos. Van Houten simply read the six-page summary document and decreed: case closed.
Two years later, after Jane Doe filed a civil suit and the case exploded into the national consciousness, Van Houten announced last week that he would reopen the Cornell case. But he also stood by his original assessment that Jane Doe’s allegations did not constitute a chargeable crime.
If Van Houten had remained on the Cornell case, nobody would have been satisfied in the end. Had he decided yet again not to prosecute, critics would charge that he predetermined the outcome and never gave the case an unbiased, critical look. And if Van Houten had chosen to pursue charges now, defenders of the accused would have claimed he overcompensated after he was pilloried by prominent politicians and in the national media.
But on Friday, Hochul somehow made it even worse when she announced her decision to appoint James as special prosecutor on the Cornell case. Ordinarily, the New York AG has limited criminal jurisdiction, not including sexual assault matters. But the law empowers the governor to specifically task the AG with investigating and (if appropriate) charging any particular case, as Hochul has done here.
James is a deeply problematic selection for the most basic of reasons: she has already publicly prejudged this case. In a September 28 social media post – four days before her appointment – James declared, “What this young woman has been forced to endure is horrific and unacceptable. I’m holding her in my heart and in my prayers. To her, and to all survivors: you’re not alone. We stand with you.”
The single most indispensable trait in any prosecutor – especially here, in a politically and emotionally charged case, under a national spotlight – is impartiality. Yet James already has drawn her conclusion and announced it to the world, before she had access to an iota of evidence.
In the AG’s own words, Jane Doe is a “survivor.” That conclusion, of course, turns on resolution of the ultimate issue in the Cornell case: whether the sexual acts were or were not consensual. James’s commentary suggests she believes Jane Doe was raped. At a minimum, James’s statement creates the appearance that she has prejudged the case. That perception alone is corrosive to public confidence in our justice system and in the Cornell investigation.
Don’t bother trying to parse James’s words to render them somehow nonjudgmental. Imagine, for example, flipping the AG’s comments on their head: What these young men have been forced to endure is horrific and unacceptable. I’m holding them in my heart and in my prayers. To them, and to all accused: you’re not alone. We stand with you. There’s absolutely no way anybody would argue then that she would be an appropriate, unbiased selection.
Tellingly, James — an experienced lawyer and powerful politician who is perfectly capable of defending herself — was unwilling (or unable) to do so. At Friday’s press conference to announce James’s appointment, a reporter asked the AG the perfectly valid question, “Why did you affirm her allegations as fact without doing your own fact-finding investigation?” James responded, “I will not comment on a Facebook post” – a humiliating cop-out in which the Attorney General refused to discuss her own words on the precise subject of her appointment.
James has a history of allowing politics to drive her exercise of law enforcement authority. She first won election as AG with massive support from New York Democrats in 2018, when she campaigned and fundraised largely on a promise to indict Donald Trump, or sue him, or generally to “be a real pain in the ass.” James made these statements before she had access to any actual proof of anything.
Worse yet, during the trial of her civil lawsuit against Trump, James ignored basic principles of legal ethics. She made inflammatory extrajudicial comments to the media throughout the trial. She opined publicly that defense witnesses were liars, as they testified — a move that would’ve gotten a criminal indictment dismissed for prosecutorial misconduct. Either James doesn’t know the rules, or she does and plays dirty anyway.
James’s fraud lawsuit against Trump resulted in a $500 million verdict. The AG gleefully live-tweeted as interest mounted, publicly rubbing a defendant’s face in a judgment. But the legal premise of James’s case was so obviously faulty that a liberal New York appeals court threw out the damages and reduced the verdict to zero. (James did not live-tweet that outcome.)
It would have taken a bit of procedural maneuvering — perhaps a temporary appointment as special counsel under the AG or a local DA — but Hochul could have used her political power to call for appointment of any number of qualified and impartial New York lawyers. How about Mary Jo White, the former U.S Attorney? Or Bronx District Attorney Darcel Clark? Or former U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch? Or Barbara Jones, the retired federal judge? It is a daunting assignment, but somebody would have accepted it. And virtually anybody would be better than James.
The Cornell case has roiled the American public. Van Houten’s slapdash bumbling undermined faith in basic prosecutorial competency and fairness. Now James — who has already passed judgment in public and then refused to defend her own actions — takes over. We’re about to learn that the only thing more dangerous than a prosecutor without a clue is a prosecutor with an agenda.
