Homicide and Special Victims

The District Attorney’s Office Special Victims Unit is assigned cases which involve victims who by age, physical or mental condition or by nature of the crime committed against them, have special concerns and/or needs or require special attention. The unit is headed by Bureau Chief Mark Harris. Cases assigned to the unit include prosecutions resulting from arrests for domestic violence, sexual assaults, child abuse, violations of orders of protection and sex offender registration violations.

Domestic Violence is the leading cause of murder in Albany County. As the overall crime rate drops, the number of crimes against women and children has been holding stubbornly steady. The number of fulltime prosecutors has doubled in our Homicide and Special Victims Bureau.

Under the leadership of the DA, his staff has been instructed to work with the Special Victim’s units of local law enforcement to provide training in the collection of evidence in DV cases. Domestic Violence is a crime and the prosecution of this crime requires that standard crime scene investigative techniques are routinely employed during DV calls.

One of the major concerns in the cases handled by this Bureau is that the victims and their families not become victimized a second time through the legal process itself. Subjecting a vulnerable youthful victim of a sexual assault to the exposure, humiliation, and stress of sharing sometimes shameful experiences with the public and then having to defend these experiences during cross examination can be experienced by these victims as a recreation of the pain of the initial event. That is why we strive to resolve as many of these cases as possible through an SCI Plea.

The Homicide Unit is assigned cases involving Murder, Manslaughter and Negligent Homicide as well as attempts to commit Murder.

A new specialized Domestic Violence component allows all Domestic Violence cases to be heard in front of one judge. This Domestic Violence Court is a collaborated effort between the District Attorney's Office, the Albany Police Department, the Albany County Probation Department, the Albany County Crime Victims, Equinox and the Albany City Court in order to provide the most informed decision on the outcome of a case as well as elevated victim services. The Court, which commenced in June of 2005, also has a compliance part in which the Judge requires the offender to appear post disposition in order to ensure that the offender is complying with the court ordered programs and sanctions. The District Attorney staffs this Court with an Assistant District Attorney and law interns.

Mr. Harris joined the Soares Administration in August of 2005. His legal career has spanned four decades starting in the Rensselaer County District Attorney’s Office in 1978. During that period he has also had a distinguished period as a defense attorney, handling many high profile cases, and most recently headed the NYS Capital Defender Office with the responsibility of defending death penalty cases in twenty nine counties.

Mr. Harris runs the Homicide and Special Victims bureaus. In addition to himself he has another Assistant District Attorney in the Homicide bureau and four Assistant District Attorneys in Special Victims who handle sex crimes, domestic violence and child abuse. His bureau also oversees the prosecutions in the Domestic Violence Court in the City of Albany.

Harris is a 1971 graduate of the University of California in Berkeley and a 1976 graduate of Boston University Law School. In addition to his past stint as an Assistant District Attorney and First Deputy NYS Capital Defender he has also been the First Deputy Corporation Counsel of the City of Troy, New York and the Town Attorney of Poestenkill, New York. He has also found the time to be an avid motorcyclist for over forty years.