Research
Backdoor to the Bench
New York’s constitutional cap on the number of Supreme Court judges has spawned double dysfunction: clogged courts rely on a secretive, highly subjective selection of acting judges as a workaround.
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The State of Criminal Court Transparency in 2024
A small group of judges and counties leads the way in publishing decisions, demonstrating that open justice is possible—even as many decisions are not published online.
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Judges’ Unpublished Decisions Debunk Discovery Myths
Analysis of nearly 300 unpublished discovery decisions reveals that case dismissals result from prosecutorial failures—not minor technicalities or defense tactics.
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Setting Bail to Fail
Judges followed rules requiring specific bail options but often set amounts that undermined the statutory intent to provide affordable alternatives, particularly to commercial bonds.
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Harnessing AI To Enhance Judicial Transparency
This factsheet introduces a new method for enhancing judicial transparency using large language models (LLMs) to analyze judicial texts.
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Unprotected
A new metric for assessing individual judges' decisions and impacts: failure to protect constitutional rights against law enforcement overreach.
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Reverse & Reassign
A new metric for assessing individual judges' decisions and impacts: reassignments to a Different Judge (RDJs), which serve as a red flag, suggesting the possibility of judicial impropriety that goes beyond getting the law wrong.
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Excessive Sentencers
A new metric for assessing individual judges' decisions and impacts: exceptionally punitive sentences, so severe that even appellate judges could not uphold them.
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Open Criminal Courts
At most 6% of New York's written criminal court decisions are available to the public online.
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Cost of Discretion
The decisions of NYC most carceral judges resulted in appx. 580 additional people detained and $77 million in taxpayer costs.
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