The judge overseeing Mayor Eric Adams' corruption case is a Biden-appointed newcomer to the federal bench who previously worked for the ACLU and NAACP, which fight for racial justice and voter justice.
Dale Ho, a 40-year-old judge in the Southern District of New York, randomly sentenced a man in a landmark case Thursday by spinning a wooden wheel used to appoint judges inside his Manhattan courtroom. It was a coincidence that brought him into the spotlight for the first time in just a year. On the bench.
“This will be a new experience for him in court — he hasn't had a big case in years — but I think he'll just work hard and try to do the right thing.” said Sheila Scheindlin. the former Southern District judge told the Post on Friday.
“Of course it's going to be very high profile and he's going to be in the spotlight,” she said.
“This is a criminal charge of corruption, and I think we would expect him to be a fair and impartial judge.”
But while Ho may lack judicial experience, the longtime left-handed lawyer is probably used to the spotlight and backlash for his activist positions.
After President Biden submitted Ho's nomination to the Senate in 2021, the jurist waited nearly two years to be approved on a narrow 50-49 party-line vote.
Eric Adams indicted: Live updates after New York City mayor is indicted
Republicans objected to Ho's past statements, including describing himself as a “wild leftist” and accusing him of “sometimes seeing racism everywhere you look.” The National Law Journal reported that reported.
They also questioned his comments calling the Electoral College and Senate “anti-democratic.”
“I deeply regret the tone I have taken at times on social media, especially if I have given anyone the impression that I am not being fair,” Ho wrote scathingly to senators. spoke.
A graduate of Princeton University and Yale Law School, Mr. Ho clerked for the Southern District of New York and the New York State Court of Appeals and served as deputy general counsel at the NAACP Defense Fund.
He became director of the American Civil Liberties Union Voting Rights Project in 2013. This job brought him Hollywood notoriety.
Ho's fight against former President Donald Trump's citizenship proposal on the U.S. Census was featured in the Kerry Washington-produced documentary “The Fight,” which premiered at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival.
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admission “Overheated” rhetoric That aside, Ho ended up on the Southern Division bench in 2023.
Shortly afterward, he told a group of lawyers that U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who served in the Southern District, said it could take up to five years for new judges to stop feeling like they were drowning. said Bloomberg Law. reported.
Although Mr. Ho is now thrown into the deep end of the judiciary, his past work on racial justice could definitely be a boon for Mr. Adams.
Mr. Adams has the support of prominent black leaders, including the Rev. Al Sharpton and NAACP President Hazel Dukes, who echo Mr. Hizzoner's lament that his prosecution represents a racial double standard. I am doing it.
