A federal judge on Feb. 19 said he would rule at a later date on a government motion requesting that he dismiss charges against New York City’s mayor, after he asked questions about what he described as an unusual situation.
U.S. District Judge Dale Ho of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York said during a hearing in a federal courthouse in the New York City borough of Manhattan that he was aware that he had little discretion after the government asked to dismiss the charges against Mayor Eric Adams, including charges of accepting illegal campaign contributions. Ho noted that courts have found that prosecutors are the best judges of whether or not a case should continue. But he said judges do have a “limited role to play.”
“To properly discharge my duty, I want to proceed carefully,” Ho said, adding that he had questions about “how to handle what ... everyone would agree is a somewhat unusual situation.”
Adams was asked by the judge if he was OK with the possibility that the charges against him, if dismissed without prejudice as the government is requesting, could be refiled in the future.
“Yes, your honor,” the mayor said.
“I have not committed a crime.
“I’m not afraid of that.”
Several federal prosecutors resigned rather than file a motion to dismiss the charges.
Ho, rather than immediately agreeing to dismiss the charges, ordered the parties to appear at a hearing on Feb. 19 to delve into the matter.
Ho had written that the hearing would go over the reason for the government’s motion, the contours of Adams’s consent to the motion, and “the procedure for resolution of the motion.”
Bove told Ho on Feb. 19 that the request was “a straightforward exercise in prosecutorial discretion” that stemmed from Trump’s executive order aimed at tackling what the president said was the recent weaponization of the justice system, as well as a memorandum from Attorney General Pam Bondi that targeted the same issue.
That makes the request “virtually unreviewable in this courtroom,” according to Bove.
Ho said he would not rule from the bench but would issue a ruling at a later date.
Adams attended the hearing as New York Gov. Kathy Hochul mulls removing him from office. She met with political leaders this week as she considers the move.
On Feb. 12, Danielle Sassoon, a Republican who was acting U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York at the time, wrote to Bove declining to obey his order to ask the court to dismiss the charges against Adams.
“It is a breathtaking and dangerous precedent to reward Adams’s opportunistic and shifting commitments on immigration and other policy matters with dismissal of a criminal indictment,” she wrote.
Sassoon soon stepped down from her position.
“Given the history, DOJ had to decide—among other issues—whether to keep going down a road that the Supreme Court has viewed with skepticism on numerous occasions,” Mizelle said. “Dismissing the prosecution was absolutely the right call.”
