In People v. Stewart, 126 A.D.2d 943 [4th Dept., 1987] the defendant was convicted of second degree murder. The victim was found dead in an apartment which the defendant shared with his brother. Several days after the murder an attorney contacted the police and informed them that the father of the alleged perpetrator had information regarding the homicide. As a result the police, accompanied by the attorney, spoke to the father who told the police that his son admitted to him that he had killed the deceased. The defendant was subsequently arrested and the attorney, now acting as defendant's counsel, advised the defendant not to make any statements. At trial the father was the chief prosecution witness. He testified at trial that he came forward with the information as he was afraid for other members of the family and wanted the defendant to get help because he believed his son was sick. In reversing the defendant's conviction, the Appellate Court held that the attorney's representation of both the chief prosecution witness, the defendant's father, and the defendant presented an actual conflict of interest from which prejudice must be presumed. The court further explained that the nature of the conflict was established by contrasting the defendant's interest in his acquittal with his father's stated reasons for initially contacting the attorney, the police and for testifying. The father's interest was in securing medical help for his son and in distancing himself and the rest of the family from the defendant. Also significant in the court's determination was the nature and character of counsel's cross-examination of the father. The court stated: An attorney's decision whether and how best to impeach the credibility of a witness to whom he ...owes a duty of loyalty necessarily places [the attorney] in a very awkward position, where prejudice to [defendant] need not be precisely delineated but must be presumed.