Tiffany L. Cabán is running to transform the Queens District Attorney's office after years of witnessing its abuses on the front line. Unlike Cabán, who has spent her career practicing criminal law as a public defender, and who has represented over 1,000 clients on cases from turnstiles to homicides:

"Borough President Melinda Katz and City Councilman Rory Lancman, have no law enforcement experience. Neither has ever practiced criminal law. Neither has ever served as a prosecutor. Rather, both are career local politicians. Katz served in the state Assembly and lost a race for Congress. Lancman has run for just about every available office: Assembly (won), state Senate (lost), mayor (aborted) and Congress (lost).

Local politicians hold hearings, draft legislation and issue proclamations. Those are not the tools of a prosecutor. Prosecutors operate in a highly technical legal world governed by precedent and penal law statutes, oral advocacy and strict rules of evidence and ethics. The new DA will quickly find his or herself in a high-level meeting with senior staff, NYPD brass or federal prosecutors.

I fear neither Katz nor Lancman will be capable of engaging in any credible or meaningful way. I fear each will find themselves mere observers to the business of the office they are charged with running...

Sensible criminal justice and prison reform is important and overdue. Elected district attorneys have an appropriate role in these discussions, much like the leaders of the city’s major medical centers have in the health-care policy debate. But just as patients demand their surgeons save their lives first and argue the merits of Obamacare later, victims and survivors of violent crime have the right to a DA whose first priority is to actually prosecute crime.

Imagine if one of the men charged in Simonsen’s killing asked Katz or Lancman to represent him at his upcoming murder trial. Would either candidate believe, based on the totality of their legal experience, that they possess the competence to represent the defendant? If the answer is no, then neither candidate is qualified to represent the people of Queens as their DA."