Judge Presiding Over Adams Graft Case Fought for Civil Liberties

Judge Presiding Over Adams Graft Case Fought for Civil Liberties

Judge Dale E. Ho, who will oversee the case, has a sterling educational pedigree and a history of pointed remarks as a civil rights lawyer.

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By Hurubie Meko

On Thursday, a little more than a year after the Senate confirmed Dale E. Ho as a federal judge in a 50-to-49 vote, he was thrust into the spotlight when he was randomly chosen to preside over the case against Mayor Eric Adams.

It will be a baptism by fire for a freshly minted judge with a sterling educational pedigree and a history of pointed remarks as a civil rights lawyer.

The indictment against Mr. Adams marked the first time in New York City’s modern history that a sitting mayor was charged with a crime. Prosecutors said Mr. Adams had for years — tracing back to his days as Brooklyn borough president — used his status to seek out “improper valuable benefits.”

Mr. Adams has refused to step down, even as other city leaders have called for his resignation. “I ask New Yorkers to wait and hear our defense,” he said in a defiant news conference on Thursday.

That defense, if Mr. Adams goes to trial, will be argued before Judge Ho.

Before joining the federal bench in Manhattan, Judge Ho supervised the American Civil Liberties Union’s voting rights litigation. He worked at the organization for about a decade and has argued in front of the Supreme Court twice, according to a biography on the organization’s website.

He was born in San Jose, Calif., in 1977 and graduated from Yale Law School in 2005. He clerked in the Southern District of New York, where he now presides himself, and at the New York Court of Appeals, the state’s highest court. Judge Ho has also worked at the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund.

President Biden submitted Judge Ho’s nomination to the Senate in 2021. It was nearly two years before he was confirmed, a time during which his work on voting rights and his public statements became points of contention between Democrats and Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee.

In a December 2021 response to a question from Senator Dick Durbin, chairman of the panel, Judge Ho said, “I recognize and regret that I have engaged in overheated rhetoric on social media.” He pledged to “maintain high standards of professional courtesy and respect in both formal and informal communications, in both public and private,” if he was confirmed.

He was confirmed largely along party lines, with Joe Manchin of West Virginia, an independent who was then a Democrat, opposing his confirmation, and Tim Scott, a Republican from South Carolina, not voting.

In a statement after Judge Ho’s confirmation, Chuck Schumer, the New York Democrat and majority leader, called him “one of the foremost election law, civil rights and voting rights experts in the country.”

“I am confident Dale Ho will follow the facts and administer justice fairly,” Mr. Schumer said. “I am proud to have recommended Mr. Ho, and to have championed his nomination.”