No sooner has the Brooklyn district attorney started to dig into the stink of scandal surrounding the courts in Kings County than the calls have started for some kind of bigfoot to be brought in. During an appearance on New York 1 last week, Ed Koch, the former mayor, argued for the appointment of a special prosecutor on the grounds that the corruption was wider than Brooklyn and the DAs’ resources were stretched. The ex-mayor was echoed by Alfonse D’Amato, who argued that there was a potential difficulty when a local prosecutor inves tigates judges before whom he might have to appear. The man who lost the last mayoral election, Mark Green, piped up to suggest that the investigation should be taken over by the New York State attorney general, Eliot Spitzer, whose job is coveted by Mr. Green.

We would be surprised if Mr. Hynes has an objection to the concept of a special prosecutor in principle; after all, he started his career as a special prosecutor in the nursing-home scandals of 1975. But the nursing-home scandals were different from the current scandal, at least at this stage of things. They stretched from Buffalo to Brooklyn. Even then, Mr. Hynes himself insisted that his appointment as special prosecutor not supersede, but be made concurrent with, the authority of the local district attorneys. He argued the point through Secretary of State Mario Cuomo to Governor Carey. He was well aware of the animosity that had been created among the district attorneys in 1972, when Maurice Nadjari was appointed by Governor Rockefeller to investigate the criminal justice system.

In Brooklyn today, Mr. Hynes seems to be doing his job perfectly well. Certainly he doesn’t share the concerns that his critics are voicing. Mr. Koch’s suggestion on New York 1, for example, that Mr. Hynes lacks for resources comes at a time when all the DAs have had to make cuts. But in Kings County, these have not eroded the rackets division, which has eight lawyers, six financial investigators, and a dozen de tectives. Nor does the concern that Mr. D’Amato raised — about investigating a court system before which the DA has to appear — seem to have cowed Mr. Hynes, who puts it this way: “The last judge I investigated, Victor Barron, is doing three to nine years in Dannemora, and the other judges understand.”

Mr. Hynes is just at the beginning of his work, as the reporting by our Jack New field and Colin Miner makes clear. In addition to the conviction he has gained so far, he has indicted another judge, Gerald Garson, and is investigating up to half a dozen others. He has begun looking at the role of Clarence Norman and his Thurgood Marshall Democratic Club in the anointment of judges. He has also been looking at what happened to $245,000 that Mr. Green’s mayoral campaign paid to Mr. Norman’s club, which endorsed Mr. Green. Since Mr. Hynes has begun to dig into this, the New York Post reported that in 1997, Ruth Messinger was asked by Mr. Norman’s political club for “several hundred thousand dollars” in return for its endorsement, a request Mrs. Messinger refused.

In any event, it is clear that Mr. Hynes has launched an important and wide-ranging investigation. He has stated that the grand jury he’s empanelled will be working for much of a year, longer than originally anticipated. His investigation holds the promise of leading to changes so that judges are picked on merit, rather than clubhouse affiliation and other dealings, and could lead to other improvements in Brooklyn and beyond. Mr. Hynes is not a politically ambitious youngster, but a sea soned reformer who has not been active in a political club for 43 years and who ran against the political organization in Brooklyn in 1989, and was endorsed by it only after he defeated its candidate. There is no reason for Messrs. Koch, or D’Amato, or Green or anyone else to be second guessing him with calls for special investigators. What those who care about Brooklyn need to do now is to back up the DA voters elected and let him get on with his probe.