RENSSELAER - Rensselaer County District Attorney Joel E. Abelove is scheduled to testify Friday before a special grand jury that's investigating his handling of a case in which a Troy police officer was cleared of wrongdoing in the April 2016 shooting death of a DWI suspect.

The probe of Abelove marks the first criminal investigation of a sitting district attorney by the office of state Attorney General Eric Schneiderman since Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed an order in 2015 giving Schneiderman authority to intervene in cases in which unarmed civilians are killed during confrontations with police.

Abelove's decision to invoke his right to testify before the grand jury that's investigating his conduct comes as the panel is nearing the end of its review of evidence in the case, according to two people with knowledge of the matter. John W. Bailey, Abelove's attorney, declined to comment.

Schneiderman's office obtained court authorization in August to convene the Rensselaer County grand jury. The panel has been hearing testimony since Sept. 20 at Rensselaer City Court, about nine miles away from the county courthouse where Abelove works. The witnesses have included several Troy police officers, at least one civilian who witnessed the aftermath of the fatal shooting, and a former member of Abelove's staff.

The Times Union reported last year that Abelove did not require Sgt. Randall French, who fatally shot the DWI suspect, to sign an immunity from prosecution waiver when the officer testified before the grand jury that cleared him less than a week after the shooting.

Abelove personally presented the case to the grand jury that cleared French. Schneiderman quickly lashed out at Abelove for rushing the case before a grand jury at a time when the attorney general's office said it would review the shooting under the authority of Cuomo's 2015 executive order.

Abelove has been an outspoken critic of Cuomo's order and went to court in an unsuccessful bid challenging the attorney general's intervention in police shootings. Abelove also tried to have Schneiderman's office barred from investigating his handling of the fatal shooting, but a court rejected that request as well.

French fatally shot 37-year-old Edson Thevenin of Colonie following a brief chase.

Thevenin was not armed with a gun or other weapon when he was shot multiple times through his windshield. However, Troy police officials had said they believed that Thevenin was armed - with his car - and that he allegedly drove forward and pinned French's legs against the officer's police cruiser before he opened fire. Two civilian witnesses, who did not testify before the grand jury that Abelove convened last year, told investigators they did not believe French was in imminent danger when he fired.

The attorney general's investigation has included using forensic experts to examine the trajectory of the eight rounds that French fired to determine where he was positioned when the shots were fired and whether he was moving.

One of the civilian witnesses, Phillip E. Gross III, who was driving a tow truck when he came upon the shooting scene, testified before the attorney general's grand jury two weeks ago.