Former Queens state judge turned district attorney candidate Gregory Lasak has seen a recent manslaughter conviction secured in his courtroom reversed on appeal, after the panel found he failed to properly handle concerns of racial bias in a move that kept a prospective juror who was black off the case.
The reversal and remittance for a new trial in Queens Supreme Court comes during the early days of Lasak’s bid to replace Richard Brown, who announced last week he wouldn’t run for re-election as DA.

The case also implicates echoes of ethical questions raised by court observers and defense attorneys about family members of judges on the bench in Queens appearing in that same court as prosecutors, even as the DA’s office casts the concerns as the unfair leveling of harmful accusations.

On Jan. 9, a panel for the Supreme Court Appellate Division, Second Department reversed convictions on charges of first-degree manslaughter and second-degree weapon possession conviction for Diamonte Alexander. The panel—composed of Justices Ruth Balkin, Cheryl Chambers, Jeffrey Cohen and Robert Miller—found that Lasak erred by not following the standard review process to ensure the move by the prosecutor in the case, who the DA’s office identified as ADA Rachel Buchter, to block a prospective juror was made for sufficiently race-neutral reasons.