The Advisory Committee on Judicial Ethics responds to written inquiries from New York state’s approximately 3,600 judges and justices, as well as hundreds of judicial hearing officers, support magistrates, court attorney-referees, and judicial candidates (both judges and non-judges seeking election to judicial office). The committee interprets the Rules Governing Judicial Conduct (22 NYCRR Part 100) and, to the extent applicable, the Code of Judicial Conduct. The committee consists of 27 current and retired judges, and is co-chaired by the Honorable Margaret Walsh, a justice of the supreme court in Albany County, and the Honorable Lillian Wan, an associate justice of the appellate division, second department.

Digest: A judge is not disqualified from an Article 78 proceeding in which a media outlet seeks to compel a law enforcement agency to disclose certain information about an inmate pursuant to the Freedom of Information Law, merely because the judge’s attorney spouse sent a preservation letter to the same agency on an unrelated matter.