Court Officials Must Disclose Documents Containing Secret Guidance to Judges on How to Interpret Laws, NY Appeals Court Rules <\/p>\n
\n NEW YORK \u2013 In a victory for judicial transparency, today the New York Appellate Division, First Department unanimously affirmed a previous New York County Supreme Court order in NYCLU v. New York State Office of Court Administration (OCA) that requires OCA to disclose all memos it sent to judges that contain guidance on how to interpret and apply the law. The ruling affirmed that the memos \u2014 which inform how courts adjudicate New Yorkers\u2019 rights \u2014 cannot be considered privileged attorney-client communications or internal judicial deliberations.
\n\u201cToday\u2019s ruling rightly affirms that the public deserves to understand how our judicial system operates, and what goes into judges\u2019 decision-making,\u201d said Daniel Lambright, supervising attorney with the New York Civil Liberties Union. \u201cEvery day, judges make decisions that can dramatically impact New Yorkers\u2019 rights, especially within vulnerable communities. New York\u2019s judicial system is strongest when it is transparent, accountable, and responsive to the public. After years of litigation, today\u2019s First Department decision makes clear: it’s time for OCA to finally do the right thing and turn over the memos.\u201d
\n\u201cIt\u2019s been five years since OCA admitted that it sends memos to judges purporting to advise them on how to decide cases,\u201d said Terry Ding, staff attorney with the ACLU\u2019s State Supreme Court Initiative. \u201cThe Freedom of Information Law exists to give the public access to documents like this, so that the process of government decision-making is not shrouded in secrecy. The decision today confirms that OCA must release the memos.\u201d
\nIntended to be a non-partisan, administrative arm of New York\u2019s court system, OCA oversees operations, staffing, and day-to-day support for judges. But in 2021, the New York Focus revealed that OCA had a practice of issuing secret guidance to state court judges, including for cases concerning critical civil rights \u2014 like whether defendants in criminal cases should be granted bail and whether to uphold due process protections for people accused of crimes. As shown by the leaked 2021 Crawford Memorandum, these directives seem to carry weight in how state court judges rule.
\nThe NYCLU and ACLU have been fighting for these records for five years. In September 2021, the NYCLU filed a Freedom of Information request expressing concern over OCA\u2019s secretive practices, and requested copies of all memos of this nature. The agency denied the request, so the NYCLU sued, arguing that the public is entitled to such guidance. The trial court then ordered OCA to produce its memos, but OCA appealed. In October 2025, the Court of Appeals ordered OCA to turn over any responsive documents to be reviewed. OCA identified 22 memos that it has continued to fight to keep secret. Today\u2019s ruling affirms that OCA has no basis to continue withholding these memos.
\nToday\u2019s decision can be found here. All case materials can be found here. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Court Officials Must Disclose Documents Containing Secret Guidance to Judges on How to Interpret Laws, NY Appeals Court…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":873234,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,3,21,19,22,20,25,24],"class_list":["post-873233","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-america","tag-news","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/873233","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=873233"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/873233\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/873234"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=873233"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=873233"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=873233"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}