Transparency & Reform
FOIL Requests
With Cornell Law School's First Amendment Clinic
What: Full rosters, affiliations, and vetting criteria of members of the Governor’s Judicial Screening Committees, plus internal guidelines and statistics on candidate evaluations.
Why: Unveil who influences judicial appointments and how candidates are assessed—allowing the public to evaluate the fairness, impartiality, and merit of state judicial selections.
With Cornell Law School's First Amendment Clinic
What: Names, affiliations, internal manuals, and recruitment criteria for all committee members since 2000, plus details on processes for evaluating and recommending judicial candidates.
Why: Reveal how New York City appoints judges, ensuring transparency around criteria, fairness, and merit in judicial appointments.
With Cornell Law School's First Amendment Clinic
What: Records identifying judges designated as Acting Supreme Court Justices (ASCJ) since 2010, including details of designations, external consultations, decision-making panel members, and criteria used in evaluations.
Why: Expose the opaque process behind judicial promotions to assess whether assignments reflect genuine need, merit, and fair practice.
With Cornell Law School's First Amendment Clinic
What: Comprehensive roster of every current New York State judge, detailing court, jurisdiction, appointment dates, current term duration, and specific judicial roles or specializations.
Why: Provide a transparent baseline for monitoring judicial appointments, reappointments, and court performance, promoting accountability within the judiciary.
With NYCLU & Harvard Law School's Cyberlaw Clinic
What: Statewide case-level datasets on criminal cases, including bail, release outcomes, and sentencing, along with the comprehensive datasets provided to third-party researchers.
Why: Facilitate rigorous analysis of patterns and systemic disparities in bail and sentencing practices, promoting transparency and informed policy reform.
With NYCLU & Harvard Law School's Cyberlaw Clinic
What: Comprehensive NYC criminal court datasets (2008-present) covering arraignment decisions, judge identities, charges, bail outcomes, and defendant evaluations.
Why: Facilitate rigorous analysis of patterns and systemic disparities in bail and sentencing practices, promoting transparency and informed policy reform.
With NYCLU & Harvard Law School's Cyberlaw Clinic
What: Complete statewide criminal court data (2008-present) including judge IDs, charges, defendant demographics, and bail decisions, plus documentation explaining datasets provided to academic researchers.
Why: Facilitate rigorous analysis of patterns and systemic disparities in bail and sentencing practices, promoting transparency and informed policy reform.
Memos of Support
Joint Memo of Support
What: Establish statewide electronic filing for all trial courts, streamlining court processes and enhancing public access to records.
Why: Simplifies court interactions, reduces bureaucracy, and makes judicial data more transparent and easily accessible for accountability.
Joint Memo of Support
What: Protect the Commission on Judicial Conduct's budget from political interference and make more misconduct records publicly accessible.
Why: Improve the accountability of the judiciary by providing transparent oversight and enabling public scrutiny of judicial conduct.
Joint Memo of Support
What: Remove limits on the number of Supreme Court Justices, enabling the legislature to appoint additional judges where caseloads demand.
Why: A well-resourced court system is essential to achieving transparency and accountability in the judiciary.