By Jessica Dye 

NEW YORK, Dec 19 (Reuters) - A judge overstepped his authority when he sanctioned the Queens district attorney's office in connection with a controversial pre-arraignment interview program, a New York appeals court ruled Wednesday.

The ruling from the Appellate Division, Second Department, blocks an April order from Acting Supreme Court Justice Joel Blumenfeld in Queens.

Blumenfeld held that prosecutors had violated Rule 8.4(c) of the American Bar Association's Rules of Professional Conduct when they questioned robbery suspect Elisaul Perez in 2009 as part of the pre-arraignment program, in which prosecutors meet with suspects in central booking before they have been assigned lawyers. Rule 8.4(c) prohibits attorneys from engaging in "dishonesty, fraud, deceit or misrepresentation."

The judge sanctioned the Queens district attorney's office, ruling that it could not use statements made by Perez during the interview in its direct case at trial.

The Second Department held that Blumenfeld had no legal basis to preclude Perez's statements.

"Justice Blumenfeld lacked the power to preclude Perez's statement, since the sanction of preclusion was not imposed to remedy any prejudice to Perez or any violation of Perez's rights, but for the purpose of sanctioning perceived unethical conduct in general," Justice Peter Skelos wrote for the unanimous panel.

The Second Department did not weigh in on whether any ethical violations had occurred.

Queens District Attorney Richard Brown praised the ruling.

"(T)he Second Department has now held, as we argued, that (Blumenfeld) exceeded his authority and that he improperly used the extreme remedy of suppression as a sanction meant to 'regulate the administration of a program' rather than focusing on the facts of the case before him," Brown said.

An attorney for Blumenfeld declined to comment.

The Queens district attorney's office has conducted pre-arraignment interviews since 2007. During the interviews, prosecutors read from a script, which encourages the suspects to tell their version of events.

"If there is something you would like us to investigate concerning the incident, you must tell us now so that we can look into it," the script says.

INTERVIEW PROGRAM

Since the inception of the pre-arraignment interview program, 11,530 defendants have been through it, Brown said. Of those defendants, 25 percent requested an attorney, 20 percent confessed to the crime, 12 percent denied the crime and 41 percent made a video statement about the crime, he said.

Civil liberties groups have decried the pre-arraignment program as an attempt to ensnare suspects before they have legal representation.

Perez was arrested in 2009 and interviewed by Queens prosecutors in connection with a suspected robbery. He was told the pre-arraignment interview would be recorded on video, was advised of his right to a speedy arraignment and read his Miranda warnings, the ruling stated.

After giving his version of the events, Perez was charged with robbery. He moved to suppress the video statements, saying they were illegally obtained in violation of his Miranda rights.

Blumenfeld denied the motion, saying Perez had failed to prove the statement was given involuntarily. However, the judge precluded the statements after concluding that prosecutors had violated Rule 8.4(c).

The Queens district attorney's office sought a writ of prohibition blocking Blumenfeld's order, arguing the program was ethical. Even if it was found to be unethical, the office said, Blumenfeld exceeded his authority by blocking Perez's statement on that basis, according to the decision.

The Second Department agreed.

"(T)he criminal proceeding, and more specifically, the suppression hearing, were used to impose a generalized sanction on the district attorney's office for its administration of a program," Skelos wrote. "As such, Justice Blumenfeld's preclusion order constituted a misuse of the entire proceeding."

Justices William Mastro, Anita Florio and L. Priscilla Hall joined the opinion.

In March, a coalition of organizations -- including the New York Civil Liberties Union, the Brennan Center for Justice, New York State Defenders Association and the New York Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers -- filed an amicus brief in the Second Department on behalf of defendants seeking to suppress evidence gleaned from pre-arraignment interviews. Those cases, which do not involve Perez, are pending.

The case is Matter of Brown v. Blumenfeld, Supreme Court of the State of New York, Appellate Division, Second Department, No. 2012-03981.

For the district attorney's office: John Ryan, James Quinn, Robert Masters and Donna Aldea of the Queens district attorney's office.

For Blumenfeld: Mark Pomerantz and Jane O'Brien of Paul Weiss Rifkind Wharton & Garrison.

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