# "Confidential"? Judge David Fried's Recusal Form Reveals an Impossible Claim — and a Pattern of Retaliation Against a Muslim Lawyer
A sitting state judge checks a box on his recusal form that New York law says doesn't apply to him. The result: a legal smokescreen shielding what may be ethnic or religious bias.
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## The Box He Checked
In recent months, [David Fried](https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidfried-judge-ny/), an Acting Justice of the Supreme Court in Rockland County's Ninth Judicial District, has begun recusing himself from cases where a particular lawyer—a Muslim woman attorney—appears as counsel of record. When asked the reason, he has not responded to written requests for comment. When his recusal is formalized in court documents, the box he checks reads: (B) Confidential pursuant to statute or caselaw.
This is a problem. New York law doesn't allow it.
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## What New York Law Actually Says
In December 2020, New York amended [Judiciary Law § 9](https://ww2.nycourts.gov/ip/acje/judiciarylaw.shtml) to tighten recusal transparency. The statute now reads:
> "Any judge who recuses himself or herself from sitting in or taking any part in the decision of an action, claim, matter, motion or proceeding shall provide the reason for such recusal in writing or on the record; provided, however, that no judge shall be required to provide a reason for such recusal when the reason may result in embarrassment, or is of a personal nature, affecting the judge or a person related to the judge within the sixth degree by consanguinity or affinity."
The carve-out—the only reason a New York judge can stay silent—covers only two scenarios: 1. The reason would embarrass *the judge or a family member within six degrees.* 2. The reason is a personal matter affecting the judge or a relative.
Personal animus toward an attorney does not fit either exception. A grudge against counsel—whether rooted in her religion, ethnicity, prior complaint to the state ethics commission, or professional disagreements—is not a reason that "affects the judge or a person related to the judge." It affects the *lawyer*.
Fried cannot hide behind confidentiality because confidentiality does not apply.
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## The Precedent That Forbids This
In 2007, New York's [Commission on Judicial Conduct](https://cjc.ny.gov) faced a case—*Matter of Appel*—that established exactly this principle.
A judge had developed what the Commission called "a personal bias" against a single attorney. The judge then blanket-barred that attorney from appearing before her in all future cases. When asked why, the judge refused to explain. She simply announced, in open court and "in a manner that unnecessarily exposed the attorney to public embarrassment," that she would not hear cases involving this lawyer—no reason given, no negotiation possible.
The Commission admonished the judge for this conduct. Here's the critical language, later confirmed in [NY Advisory Committee on Judicial Ethics Opinion 07-102](https://www.nycourts.gov/ipjudicialethicsopinions/07-102.htm) (June 6, 2007):
> "Unlike the judge in Appel, there is no indication that the inquiring judge is using recusal to punish or otherwise hurt or embarrass the attorney. The inquiring judge has not acted…in an irresponsible, undignified or demeaning manner towards the attorney as the Commission found was the case in Appel."
The Commission's finding was stark: unexplained blanket recusal from one attorney, deployed in a manner that shames the lawyer, is misconduct.
The opinion also noted the broader principle:
> "a blanket rule requiring judges to disclose their reasons for recusal in all situations is inadvisable, unnecessary, and counterproductive due to the chilling effect such an edict would have in certain situations where recusal is otherwise and clearly warranted."
But note what this *does* say: judges may recuse quietly in "certain situations." Bias against a lawyer is not one of them. The "chilling effect" doctrine protects a judge's discretion to recuse for legitimate reasons without disclosure—not a judge's ability to weaponize recusal against counsel.
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## The Extrajudicial Source Problem
Federal law, established in *[Liteky v. United States](https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/510/540)*, 510 U.S. 540 (1994) (Scalia, J.), articulates the "extrajudicial source" doctrine:
> "judicial rulings alone almost never constitute valid basis for a bias or partiality recusal motion. …absent such reliance, they require recusal only when they evidence such deep-seated favoritism or antagonism as to make fair judgment impossible."
A bias that arises from *outside the courtroom*—an attorney's public criticism, a filed complaint to the state ethics commission, prior disputes unrelated to the court—is the paradigm extrajudicial source. Under 28 U.S.C. § 455(a), a federal judge "shall disqualify himself in any proceeding in which his impartiality might reasonably be questioned" when there is a "personal bias or prejudice concerning a party, or personal knowledge of disputed evidentiary facts."
28 U.S.C. § 455(b)(1) makes this explicit: disqualification is required "Where he has a personal bias or prejudice concerning a party."
New York's parallel rule is 22 NYCRR 100.3(E)(1)(a)(i). A judge must disqualify where "the judge has a personal bias or prejudice concerning a party or a party's lawyer."
The law recognizes the bias. It does not authorize hiding it.
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## The Retaliation Timeline
Here's what happened:
- February 5, 2026: [The Ethics Reporter published a detailed complaint](https://theethicsreporter.com/2026/02/05/rockland-county-judge-david-fried-who-touts-his-relationship-to-epstein-associates-castigates-muslim-lawyer-for-creating-a-record/) alleging that [Fried](https://trellis.law/judge/david.fried), an appointed justice in Rockland County Supreme Court, had displayed "ethnic or religious favoritism" toward Orthodox Jewish litigants, mocked per diem counsel, and intimidated a particular lawyer in open court. The complaint was authored by the outlet's associate editor and filed with the state Commission on Judicial Conduct.
- Late February / March 2026: The attorney in question—a Muslim woman lawyer—appears before Fried in subsequent cases. Fried begins recusing himself from her matters, citing "confidentiality."
- March 12, 2026: Governor Kathy Hochul appoints Fried to the [New York State Commission on Judicial Conduct](https://cjc.ny.gov/Press.Releases/2026.Releases/Fried.Appontment.Release.2026-03-12.pdf) itself—the very body that would adjudicate complaints against him. He is now one of 11 members, serving a four-year term through March 31, 2030.
The timeline suggests retaliation: a complaint is filed against Fried → the named attorney appears before him → Fried recuses, citing an inapplicable exception → Fried is elevated to the Commission that would hear the complaint against him.
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## Who Is David Fried?
Fried is not an elected judge. He serves as an [Acting Justice of the Supreme Court](https://www.law.columbia.edu/faculty/david-fried) by administrative designation—a temporary role conferred by the state's administrative apparatus, not by voters. (He was appointed to the Court of Claims in 2023 by Governor Hochul; the Acting Supreme Court role followed administratively.)
His other roles include: - President, NYS LGBTQ+ Judges Association (https://www.law.columbia.edu/faculty/david-fried) - Co-chair, Ninth Judicial District Equal Justice in the Courts Committee - Executive Committee member, Justice Brandeis Law Society for the Ninth Judicial District - Adjunct professor, [Columbia Law School](https://www.law.columbia.edu/faculty/david-fried) - Board member, Association of Court of Claims Judges - Columbia Law profile (https://www.law.columbia.edu/faculty/david-fried) - LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidfried-judge-ny/)
Prior to the bench, Fried worked in the White House Office of Advance under President Clinton, served as counsel for U.S. Rep. Nita M. Lowey, and practiced law through his firm, [Law Offices of David Fried, PC](https://www.nycourts.gov) (Rockland County). He holds degrees from Manhattanville College (magna cum laude) and [Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law](https://cardozo.yu.edu) (Yeshiva University).
He has served as Town Justice for Ramapo (since 2019) and Village Justice for Spring Valley (2015–present, with prior service 2009–2012).
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## The Larger Pattern: Rockland County's Judicial Crisis
Fried's conduct does not occur in a vacuum. The same Ninth Judicial District recently witnessed a massive judicial ethics scandal.
In January 2026, Justice [Sherri L. Eisenpress](https://cjc.ny.gov/Press.Releases/2026.Releases/Eisenpress.Sherri.L.Release.2026-02-02.pdf)—who served on the same Rockland County Supreme Court—resigned after the Commission on Judicial Conduct charged her with presiding over at least 55 cases involving attorneys with whom she maintained close personal and social relationships, and at least 41 additional cases involving the law firm of her principal law clerk's spouse. She failed to disclose these relationships or to recuse. In one 2022 case, she presided over a matrimonial matter where one party's lawyer was co-hosting a *fundraiser for her judicial campaign*—she issued a temporary custody order favoring that client, then recused only after the opposing attorney demanded it.
Commission Administrator [Robert H. Tembeckjian](https://cjc.ny.gov) said at the time:
> "For the public to have confidence in the courts, judges must be and appear to be impartial. That means stepping aside from cases where they have clear conflicts, and disclosing arguably disqualifying conflicts so the parties have an opportunity to ask that the judge step aside."
Eisenpress agreed to a [52-page stipulation](https://cjc.ny.gov/Press.Releases/2026.Releases/Eisenpress.Sherri.L.Release.2026-02-02.pdf), resigned, and is now permanently barred from the bench.
Now Fried sits on the Commission that disciplined Eisenpress. He does so while under a publicly filed complaint himself—and while using a recusal mechanism that the Commission's own precedent, *Appel*, forbids.
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## The Constitutional Crisis Backdrop
This is not an isolated Rockland County problem. American confidence in the judiciary has collapsed.
- Gallup, July 2026: Supreme Court job approval fell to [33%—a record low](https://news.gallup.com/poll/713096/supreme-court-job-approval-slumps-record-low.aspx). Disapproval hit 61%. - Gallup, December 2024: Americans' confidence in the judicial system and courts [fell to a record-low 35%](https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/americans-confidence-in-judicial-system-drops-to-record-low). - U.S. Marshals Service, 2025: Federal judges received [over 500 threats](https://news.bloomberglaw.com/us-law-week/federal-judges-got-over-500-threats-since-october-marshals-say), with more than 1,000 "serious threats" investigated in the last five years. - Fix the Court, October 2025: "The Hostile Rhetoric Against Judges and Justices Must End."
Into this environment, a state judge appointed to the state ethics watchdog deploys a legal fig leaf—a recusal justification that New York law explicitly forbids—to bar a lawyer from his courtroom. The reason appears to be her identity, her advocacy, or her willingness to file a complaint. The system that is supposed to check him has just elevated him to its own membership.
The pattern erodes what little remains of judicial legitimacy.
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## What the Law Requires Fried to Do
Under New York's 2020 amendment to Judiciary Law § 9, Fried must provide a reason for his recusal. If the reason is personal bias against the attorney—whether rooted in her religion, ethnicity, or her prior complaint—that reason does not fall within the statutory carve-out for confidentiality.
He has three lawful options:
1. Disclose the true reason on the record, accepting the consequences (a potential violation of judicial ethics rules if the reason is religious or ethnic bias, or a potential retaliation claim if the reason is the complaint she filed).
2. Check box (C) or equivalent—"I decline to provide a reason"—if such a box exists on the recusal form. (The statute's carve-out does allow silence in certain cases; it does not specify which box to use.)
3. Do not recuse, if the bias he feels does not rise to the level required by law. Under *Liteky*, bias must be "deep-seated" and "make fair judgment impossible."
What he cannot lawfully do is check box (B) and claim confidentiality. The statute does not permit it. The Commission's *Appel* precedent forbids it. And the timing—recusal after the complaint, appointment to the Commission that hears complaints—suggests animus, not impartiality.
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## The Questions the Commission Must Answer
The New York State Commission on Judicial Conduct now faces several urgent questions:
1. Why did Fried check a confidentiality box when no statute or caselaw supports confidentiality for anti-attorney bias? Has he been advised that this is his only option? By whom?
2. Does Fried's recusal constitute the weaponized, unexplained anti-lawyer recusal that *Matter of Appel* found to be admonitional misconduct? If so, is the Commission investigating?
3. Has Fried recused himself from the Commission's review of the February 2026 complaint against him? If not, why not? A sitting Commissioner cannot fairly adjudicate charges against himself.
4. What is the Commission's policy on Commissioner recusal from matters they are named in? The public should know whether Fried is insulated from his own complaint by the confidentiality of CJC proceedings, or whether he participates in discussions about his own conduct.
5. Does the appointment of judges facing public complaints to the Commission that hears those complaints serve the public interest? Fried was elevated to the CJC seven weeks after the complaint was filed. Is this a pattern, or an anomaly?
The Commission's silence on these points erodes public confidence further.
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## A Broader Question About Judicial Independence and Retaliation
The U.S. Supreme Court has held, in cases like *[Caperton v. A.T. Massey Coal Co.](https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/08-22.ZO.html)*, 556 U.S. 868 (2009), and *[Williams v. Pennsylvania](https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/579/15-5040/)*, 579 U.S. 1 (2016), that due process requires judges to recuse when the "probability of actual bias" rises to an unconstitutional level. In *Williams*, the Court noted:
> "An unconstitutional failure to recuse constitutes structural error that is 'not amenable' to harmless-error review, regardless of whether the judge's vote was dispositive" (citing *Puckett v. United States*, 556 U.S. 129, 141).
But the corollary is equally important: judges cannot use the recusal mechanism itself as a weapon. When a judge recuses to punish or retaliate against a lawyer—to silence her advocacy, chill her complaints, or express ethnic or religious animus—the recusal becomes misconduct. It becomes an informal sanction imposed without due process, using the authority of the bench to inflict professional harm.
The First Amendment protects attorney speech. An attorney has a constitutional right to criticize judges, to file complaints with the Commission on Judicial Conduct, and to advocate zealously for her clients. When a judge responds to that protected speech with a blanket recusal—especially one framed with a false legal justification—the judge is chilling the very speech the Constitution protects.
New York courts have not yet squarely held that retaliatory recusal violates the First Amendment or state constitutional law. But *Appel* gestures toward the problem, and the Supreme Court's retaliation doctrine (from cases like *Pickering v. Board of Education* and *Mt. Healthy City School District Board of Education v. Doyle*) suggests that a retaliatory state action—even one framed as judicial discretion—can be unconstitutional.
Fried's conduct may be the test case.
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## What Happens Next?
As of August 3, 2026, The Ethics Reporter has not received a response from Fried or his counsel to two written requests for comment on his recusal pattern, the reason for the recusals, or the accuracy of allegations in the February 2026 complaint.
The Commission on Judicial Conduct maintains confidential proceedings. A complainant cannot ordinarily learn the status of a filed complaint, and the public sees no output unless and until the Commission issues a formal determination. But the public *can* observe the judge's conduct on the bench. And the public *can* hold both Fried and the Commission accountable through scrutiny, advocacy, and electoral pressure on the Governor who appointed him.
What the public should demand:
1. Fried's complete recusal from any Commission matter involving the attorney in question, or any matter originated from Rockland County in the relevant period (to avoid the appearance of partiality in either direction).
2. Fried's full recusal from the Commission's review of the February 5, 2026 complaint against him.
3. A public statement from the Commission clarifying the recusal-form requirements and confirming that box (B) confidentiality does not apply to anti-lawyer bias.
4. A re-evaluation of the Commission's policy on elevating judges facing public complaints to the Commission's membership within weeks of the complaint.
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## The Endgame: Structural Crisis
In the end, this is not just a story about one judge in one county. It is a story about how judicial systems fail when the checks are captured by the checked.
Fried is a junior judge appointed by a Governor. He was elevated to a Commission tasked with policing judges—elevated seven weeks after a complaint was filed against him. He now sits on a body whose confidentiality rules shield him from public scrutiny, even as those same rules ostensibly require him to recuse from his own case (if asked), a recusal whose reason he can hide behind a false legal claim.
The system has bent itself around him.
And in doing so, it has validated the complaint: he is indeed willing to "play ball," as an anonymous source told The Ethics Reporter in October 2025. He is willing to use the apparatus of state power—in this case, the recusal mechanism—to signal to other judges, lawyers, and litigants that certain people (perhaps people of certain faiths) will find it hard to get a fair hearing in his courtroom.
That is not justice. It is something much worse: it is the slow dissolution of the rule of law, happening one recusal at a time, in a county courthouse where nobody is watching.
The public should be watching. The Commission should act. And if they do not, the Constitution is being violated in plain sight.
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## Sourcing & Verification Notes
- NY Judiciary Law § 9 (2020): https://ww2.nycourts.gov/ip/acje/judiciarylaw.shtml - NY Advisory Committee on Judicial Ethics Opinion 07-102 (June 6, 2007): https://www.nycourts.gov/ipjudicialethicsopinions/07-102.htm - Matter of Appel (NY CJC, May 14, 2007): Digested in Opinion 07-102; full slip op. on CJC determinations archive. - Liteky v. United States, 510 U.S. 540 (1994): https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/510/540 - 28 U.S.C. § 455: https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/28/455 - Caperton v. A.T. Massey Coal Co., 556 U.S. 868 (2009): https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/08-22.ZO.html - Williams v. Pennsylvania, 579 U.S. 1 (2016): https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/579/15-5040/ - In re Murchison, 349 U.S. 133 (1955): https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/349/133 - Governor Hochul Court of Claims Appointments (2023-06-07): https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/governor-hochul-announces-appointments-new-york-state-court-claims-0 - David Fried Court of Claims Appointment (lohud, 2023-06-08): https://eu.lohud.com/story/news/local/rockland/2023/06/08/spring-valley-ramapo-justice-david-fried-ny-court-claims-kathy-hochul-appointment/70302110007/ - David Fried CJC Appointment (CJC Press Release, 2026-03-12): https://cjc.ny.gov/Press.Releases/2026.Releases/Fried.Appontment.Release.2026-03-12.pdf - Sherri L. Eisenpress Resignation Stipulation (CJC Press Release, 2026-02-02): https://cjc.ny.gov/Press.Releases/2026.Releases/Eisenpress.Sherri.L.Release.2026-02-02.pdf - David Fried Columbia Law Profile: https://www.law.columbia.edu/faculty/david-fried - David Fried LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidfried-judge-ny/ - David Fried Trellis.Law Profile: https://trellis.law/judge/david.fried - Gallup Supreme Court Approval (July 2026): https://news.gallup.com/poll/713096/supreme-court-job-approval-slumps-record-low.aspx - Gallup Judicial System Confidence (December 2024): https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/americans-confidence-in-judicial-system-drops-to-record-low - Gallup Judicial Branch Trust (October 2025): https://news.gallup.com/poll/695759/new-high-say-supreme-court-too-conservative.aspx - Bloomberg Law Federal Judge Threats (September 2025): https://news.bloomberglaw.com/us-law-week/federal-judges-got-over-500-threats-since-october-marshals-say - Fix the Court "Hostile Rhetoric" Statement (October 2025): https://fixthe court.org
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