The Manhattan federal judge who was booted from the “stop-and-frisk” case by an appellate panel last week after it found her impartiality “ran afoul” of judicial ethics now wants her own day in court to tell her side.
A team of five renowned lawyers from across the country filed papers on Wednesday with the US Second Circuit Court of Appeals on behalf of Judge Shira Scheindlin seeking the opportunity to address the panel’s decision to remove her from the case.
“With respect, the undersigned counsel believes that the [Second Circuit’s] order of removal raises troubling issues warranting reconsideration by the ..panel, or … review by the full Circuit, on both substantive and procedural grounds,” the legal team said in the 15-page brief.
NYU law professor Burt Neuborne, a nationally known civil liberties lawyer heading Scheindlin’s “Dream Team,” said Scheindlin was never given the opportunity to be heard before she was kicked off the case – and is entitled to by law.
“We want her to have her day to address the order of removal,” Neuborne told the Post. “Sbe is entitled to an opportunity to respond, whether it’s on her own or by [her five lawyers].”
Neuborne declined to say whether the lawyers reached out to the judge first or she reached out them. He also said it’s not unprecedented for a federal judge to address an US appeals panel.
In a ruling that put a series of NYPD reforms she mandated on hold, the three-judge panel said Scheindlin violated the Code of Conduct for United States Judges by failing to “avoid impropriety and the appearance of impropriety in all activities” and by failing to disqualify herself “in a proceeding in which the judge’s impartiality might reasonably be questioned The panel also granted the city a stay to delay the implementation of Scheindlin’s August ruling — which found stop and frisk to be unconstitutional and called for a federal monitor overseeing the NYPD and for cops to wear body cameras on patrol as part of a pilot program.
Besides Neuborne, the others on Scheindlin’s legal team are Norman Dorsen, a professor at the New York University School of Law and past president of the American Civil Liberties Union; Arthur R. Miller, a former longtime Harvard Law School professor who now teaches at NYU; Yale Law School professor Judith Resnick; and former city Corporation Counsel Frederick A.O. Schwartz Jr.
The city is currently appealing the ruling, and Manhattan federal Judge Analisa Torres has been reassigned to take the case in the interim.
The city declined to comment.