DA, A-OK
The Brooklyn DA is off the hook in a federal court decision released yesterday. Southern district judge William H, Pauley III dismissed almost all of the counts pending against Charles Hynes in a lawsuit that alleged the Brooklyn DA had unfairly prosecuted a political rival in 2003. The New York Law Journal reports that Sandra E. Roper had filed suit against a variety of public officials — including top state judges Jonathan Lippman and Judith S. Kaye — after Hynes indicted Roper for stealing money from a client. Following a mistrial those charges were dismissed, but Roper lost her job as clerk to Civil Court judge Peter Sweeney. Federal judge Pauley dismissed all counts, except one pending against Supreme Court judge Joan Carey — Roper alleged that Carey discussed the case with Hynes during a heated DA election in which Roper won 36 percent of the vote.

UNIFORM RESPONSE
Federal judge Nicholas Garaufis is being asked to make cops remove their uniforms and wear plainclothes in his courtroom, writes the New York Daily News. The motion came yesterday in a highly publicized Staten Island trial where Ronell Wilson is accused of killing two undercover police officers during a gun bust. His lawyers filed a motion asking the judge to compel the police officers ringing the room to remove their uniforms and the supporters of the slain officers to remove their buttons that refer to the slain officers. In the motion, his lawyers wrote: "He is the only defendant on trial, and displays of remembrance of the victims imply solidarity with the prosecution of their accused killer and a belief that he is guilty."

REFUND RECOUP RUMBLE RECESSED 
A federal judge just made more than 230,000 Medicare recipients very happy. U.S. District Judge Henry H. Kennedy, Jr., yesterday ordered the government agency to stop trying to recoup $50 million it doled out in erroneous refunds for Medicare recipients. The agency had set a September 30th deadline for recipients to return the funds, but Kennedy issued a preliminary injunction that scotched the ultimatum. According to The New York Times, the judge ruled that "the administration could not enforce that demand unless it first gave beneficiaries an opportunity to seek an exemption." The government's lawyers have not decided if they will appeal the decision. The injunction also ordered the agency to write all the Medicare recipients involved in the error and explain that the refund could not proceed without an exemption mechanism.