New York has no official list of its worst judges. What it has is a paper trail — thousands of pages of published appellate decisions, formal misconduct determinations, investigative journalism, and Commission on Judicial Conduct press releases — that, assembled together, point clearly at the same names. The Ethics Reporter has done that assembly. This is the result.
There is a reason this story is hard to tell. No single database tracks per-judge reversal rates in New York. The Commission on Judicial Conduct disciplines a small fraction of the roughly 3,300 active judges statewide in any given year. Investigations take years. Many litigants who are harmed by incompetent or corrupt judges lack the resources to appeal, let alone to file formal complaints. The judges who never appear in appellate reporters or Commission press releases are invisible to this kind of analysis, not because nothing went wrong in their courtrooms, but because no one had the means to find out.
What follows covers the judges who do appear — repeatedly, conspicuously, and for reasons that go beyond bad luck or legitimate legal disagreement. The methodology is six-criterion, weighted toward the appellate record. The findings are organized by tier. The sources are cited. The standard, throughout, is the public record.
How "Worst" Is Measured
This report uses six criteria, weighted in the following order:
- Pattern of appellate reversal across multiple subject areas. Nationally, roughly 80% of trial-court decisions that are appealed are affirmed. Reversal is the exception. A judge who is reversed repeatedly, and across different areas of law, is by definition operating outside the normal range. A judge reversed twice in the same case is operating outside it by orders of magnitude.
- "Reverse and Reassign" rulings. Occasionally, an appellate court doesn't just reverse a lower court — it orders that the case be sent to a different judge on remand. This remedy is reserved for conduct the appellate court views as going beyond ordinary legal error: bias, denigration of counsel, the appearance of partiality. Scrutinize, the judicial metrics organization, identified only 66 such rulings out of 49,830 criminal appeals statewide from 2007 to 2023 — roughly 0.1% of all appeals.
- Formal Commission on Judicial Conduct discipline. Removal, censure, or admonition by the Commission is the constitutional finding of misconduct. Removal requires Court of Appeals approval.
- Resignation under cloud. A judge who resigns while complaints are pending and agrees never to seek judicial office again is, implicitly, conceding the substance of the allegations.
- Documented bias, conflicts, or appearance of impropriety. Bias and undisclosed conflicts undermine public confidence even where formal discipline never issues.
- Investigative press coverage. Repeat appearance in serious investigative journalism is a credible signal of unresolved institutional concern.
The criteria are reinforcing, not independent. The judges who score highest on this list score high on multiple criteria simultaneously.
Tier 1 — Active Judges With Documented Reversal Patterns
Justice Robert S. Ondrovic — Westchester County Supreme Court
The single most documented case of active appellate reversal on the current New York bench belongs to Justice Robert S. Ondrovic of the Westchester County Supreme Court's 9th Judicial District. Elected in November 2020 to a 14-year term running through 2030, Ondrovic has been reversed by the Appellate Division, Second Department at least five times since 2024. One of those reversals was the second reversal of the same case — a remedy so rare it signals something beyond a single legal mistake.
The cases span every area of civil law he touches:
- Prado v. Town/Village of Harrison, 244 A.D.3d 884 (2025) — a personal injury case reversed twice on the same underlying dispute. The Second Department found Ondrovic failed to correctly apply the "serious injury" threshold and improperly denied leave to amend.
- Kane v. Mount Pleasant Cent. Sch. Dist., 242 A.D.3d 847 (2025) — reversed for premature dismissal of a CPLR 306-b extension claim and for failing to grant an interest-of-justice extension.
- Caccioppoli v. Mayfair Housing, LLC, 241 A.D.3d 1524 (2025) — premises liability; reversed because defendants failed to meet their prima facie summary judgment burden despite Ondrovic granting it anyway.
- Maritzen v. Maritzen (2025) — matrimonial; reversed for Ondrovic's refusal to enforce a divorce settlement involving restricted stock units.
- Jacobson v. Jacobson (2025) — matrimonial; reversed on a counsel-fee award for applying the wrong legal standard.
The scope is the story. These are not errors concentrated in one corner of the law. They cross personal injury, employment, premises liability, and matrimonial practice. A reversal in a single subject area might be attributed to genuine interpretive difficulty. Five reversals — including a double-reversal in a single case — across five different areas of law is a pattern. The litigants who couldn't afford to appeal paid the price for every one of those errors.
The Ethics Reporter has called publicly for Ondrovic's removal. No discipline has been issued by the Commission on Judicial Conduct. He continues to sit.
The Ethics Reporter's full investigative series on Justice Ondrovic is at theethicsreporter.com/article/judge-robert-ondrovic-removal-westchester-how-to-remove-new-york-judge.
Tier 2 — Judges Removed, Disciplined, or Resigned Under Cloud
Justice Erin P. Gall — Oneida County Supreme Court (Removed January 2025)
On July 1, 2022, a high school graduation party in New Hartford, New York, became the site of a judicial career's end — though the end itself took nearly three years to arrive. Justice Erin P. Gall, then a sitting Supreme Court justice in the Fifth Judicial District, attended the party and, in the words of the Commission on Judicial Conduct's formal determination, "engaged in a racially offensive, profane, prolonged public diatribe." She repeatedly invoked her judicial office. She threatened gun violence against Black teenagers. She "both criticized and pledged favored treatment for the police."
The Commission, recommending removal in July 2024, concluded that Gall had "irreparably damaged her integrity" and "forfeited her ability to be and to appear to be impartial, particularly as it relates to race and law enforcement personnel." The New York Court of Appeals accepted the recommendation and removed her from the bench in January 2025.
The conduct documented in this case — a sitting judge threatening to shoot teenagers at a graduation party while promising police preferential treatment in her courtroom — is among the most egregious in Commission history.
Judge Gregory P. Storie — St. Lawrence County Court (Censured April 2024)
In the 2022 murder case involving a SUNY Potsdam student — People v. Snow — Judge Gregory P. Storie told attorneys in chambers that he intended to sentence the defendant to 25 years to life on a plea "because anything less would not look good to the media or to the victim's family." The Commission on Judicial Conduct censured him on April 15, 2024 for this statement. What made the censure more striking was the accompanying disclosure: the Commission had issued Storie a private caution only one month earlier for separate violations, including failing to recuse from a case involving his own relatives and improperly increasing a defendant's bail.
A judge who receives a private caution in March and is publicly censured in April is not a judge who made an isolated mistake. Judge Storie continues to sit.
Judge Barry Kamins — Former Brooklyn Supervising Judge (Retired December 2014)
Barry Kamins was Brooklyn's supervising judge for criminal matters — the judge who oversaw the other judges. In December 2014, he retired under a stipulation with the Commission after the New York City Department of Investigation released a 27-page report documenting that Kamins had exchanged approximately 300 emails over 18 months with then-Brooklyn District Attorney Charles J. Hynes. The emails, sent from Kamins's official judicial email account, contained campaign strategy, debate preparation, opposition research on Hynes's challenger, and legal advice on cases pending in the District Attorney's office — including cases that Kamins, in his administrative capacity, was overseeing.
The conduct represents precisely what judicial ethics rules are designed to prevent: a supervising judge operating as a political and legal advisor to the chief prosecutor whose cases came before him. ProPublica's reporting on this case remains among the most significant pieces of investigative accountability journalism on the New York judiciary.
Judge Cynthia Lopez — Bronx Family Court (2024)
In February 2024, reporting documented that Judge Lopez, then 47, had attempted to initiate a sexual encounter through the "3Fun" swinger app with a woman whose custody case she was actively presiding over. The communications were screenshot-preserved by the litigant and published. The case raises questions that go beyond personal misconduct: a family court judge who is simultaneously a party to the intimate life of a litigant before her cannot, by any available standard, be considered impartial.
Justice ShawnDya L. Simpson — Kings County Civil Court (Retired)
A ProPublica investigation documented that Justice Simpson presided over significant judgments — including a high-profile ruling vacating a reverse-racism murder conviction — while suffering from undiagnosed and advanced Alzheimer's disease. Litigants, including in People v. Cruz, subsequently sought vacatur of Simpson's oral decisions on grounds of mental incompetency. The case raises a question that the judiciary's self-governance structure is poorly equipped to answer: what happens to the litigants whose cases were decided by a judge who lacked the capacity to decide them?
Justice John D. Kinsella — Geddes Town Court, Onondaga County (Resigned September 2024)
Justice Kinsella resigned on September 23, 2024, while under active Commission investigation into whether his health was impairing his ability to perform judicial duties. He had served as town justice since 2001. As part of his resignation, he agreed to refrain from seeking or accepting any future judicial position. The resignation-under-investigation pattern is common enough in the Commission's annual reports that it merits its own category: judges who effectively concede the substance of the allegations against them by walking away rather than contesting the inquiry.
Tier 3 — Judges Reversed and Reassigned: The 0.1% Club
When an appellate court reverses a criminal conviction, it sends the case back for a new trial. In almost every instance, that retrial goes back to the same judge. In roughly 0.1% of cases — 66 out of 49,830 criminal appeals statewide from 2007 to 2023, according to Scrutinize — the appellate court orders the case sent to a different judge. This remedy is the appellate system's closest equivalent to a no-confidence vote. It is reserved for situations in which the court's concern extends beyond legal error to the conduct, bias, or appearance of partiality of the judge personally.
The following judges received this designation:
Justice Kenneth C. Holder — Supreme Court, Queens County
In People v. Suazo, 120 A.D.3d 1270 (2d Dep't 2014), the key prosecution witness at a suppression hearing — a detective whose credibility was the central issue — was married to Holder's own law clerk. The Second Department held the conduct "created, at a minimum, the appearance that [he] could not be impartial" in assessing the detective's credibility, and reassigned the case.
Justice Robert A. Neary — Supreme Court, New York County
In People v. Leggett, 76 A.D.3d 860 (1st Dep't 2010), a unanimous five-judge panel found that Justice Neary engaged in "pervasive denigration" of defense counsel in front of the jury. The opinion documents Neary instructing counsel to "behave like a professional, please and not a clown" and asking the lawyer — in the jury's presence — whether he wished to "behave like a gentleman" or "be escorted out." The Court called the conduct "simply inexcusable."
Justice Vincent Del Giudice — Supreme Court, Kings County
In People v. Ward, 175 A.D.3d 722 (2d Dep't 2019), the Appellate Division cited the "cumulative effect" of Del Giudice's rulings and jury instructions as depriving the defendant of a fair trial. The opinion also quotes Del Giudice's sentencing remarks to the defendant: "Sir, you're a murderer, all right. You lie, you cheat, you do everything you can to get over on society. … You're a scourge, a real scourge on society. … You should be excised from the body politic." The case was reassigned.
Justice Maxwell Wiley — Supreme Court, New York County
People v. McLeod, 122 A.D.3d 16 (1st Dep't 2014): Justice Wiley "improvidently exercised [his] discretion" by precluding a line of questioning about a witness's prior crimes — allowing the witness to avoid asserting his Fifth Amendment privilege in the jury's presence. Reversed and reassigned.
Justice Abraham L. Clott — Supreme Court, New York County
People v. George, 183 A.D.3d 436 (1st Dep't 2020): The Appellate Division held that Judge Clott "abused [his] discretion in denying defendant's motion to vacate the conviction without first holding a hearing on his claim that his counsel was ineffective." Reversed and reassigned.
Justice Donald E. Todd — County Court, Onondaga County
People v. Andrews, 210 A.D.3d 1429 (4th Dep't 2022): Judge Todd "abused [his] discretion in precluding the defendant from calling [a] witness … the error was not harmless, and a new trial must be granted." Reversed and reassigned.
Justice Susan M. Capeci — Supreme Court, Westchester County
People v. Bradley, 99 A.D.3d 934 (2d Dep't 2012): Justice Capeci "improperly precluded the defendant from adducing testimony … the preclusion of such material and exculpatory evidence deprived the defendant of a fair trial." Reversed and reassigned.
Justice Bruce Balter — Supreme Court, Kings County
People v. Brown, 104 A.D.3d 864 (2d Dep't 2013): Justice Balter "permitted the prosecutor to instruct the jury on matters of law during the course of his summation," "improperly surrendered [his] nondelegable judicial responsibility," and "significantly impaired the integrity of the proceedings." Reversed and reassigned.
Tier 4 — The Structural Problem: Town and Village Justice Courts
Any honest accounting of the worst judges in New York State must address a structural reality that has been documented for two decades and remains substantially unaddressed: roughly 70% of all Commission on Judicial Conduct discipline in the agency's history has fallen on town and village justices.
New York operates approximately 2,000 town and village justice courts. The majority of the lay justices who staff them are not lawyers. A 2006 New York Times investigative series documented the consequences: courtrooms that were not actual courtrooms — basement rooms without a bench or jury box, proceedings closed to the public, witnesses who were not sworn, no verbatim record. Defendants were jailed illegally. Racial and sexual bigotry, in the Times's words, was "so explicit it seems to come from some other place and time."
ProPublica's 2017 follow-up found that the structural problem remained unaddressed. Hundreds of judges continued to preside without law degrees. The discipline rate continued to reflect the gap.
Justice John D. Kinsella, described above, is among the most recent examples from this category. He will not be the last. The Commission's discipline record is a permanent, rolling documentation of a court system that New York's legislature has repeatedly declined to reform.
The Numbers Behind the Crisis
The Commission on Judicial Conduct's most recent annual data confirms that the underlying problem is getting worse, not better:
- 2024: 3,353 new complaints — a record at the time. 11 judges publicly disciplined (3 removed, 3 censured, 5 admonished). 13 additional judges resigned and agreed never to return to judicial office.
- 2025: 3,363 new complaints — a new record. 10 formal disciplinary determinations. 15 matters resolved by stipulation. At least 28 additional judges resigned while complaints were pending.
- Since 1978: Approximately 994 judges publicly disciplined. 185 removed from office.
The pattern in those numbers is instructive. Complaint volume is rising. The resignation-under-cloud rate is rising. Formal disciplinary determinations are essentially stable — meaning the pipeline of misconduct allegations is outpacing the system's capacity to formally adjudicate them. The result is a growing backlog of judges who face serious allegations but never receive a formal Commission determination because they resign before the process concludes.
A judge who resigns under investigation, agrees never to return to the bench, and is never formally disciplined does not appear in the headline disciplinary count. But the conduct that produced the investigation happened. The litigants who appeared before that judge during the investigation period were affected. The system absorbed the misconduct and moved on. The public record reflects only a press release.
What You Can Do
The New York State Commission on Judicial Conduct accepts complaints from any member of the public. If you have appeared before a judge whose conduct you believe meets the criteria described in this report — repeated reversals, documented bias, conflicts of interest, or conduct that goes beyond ordinary legal disagreement — you can file a complaint at cjc.ny.gov. The Commission's phone number is (212) 809-0566.
You can also contact your state legislator about the town and village justice court reform that the legislature has declined to pass for two decades. A court system in which 70% of disciplinary action falls on non-lawyer judges is a court system that the legislature has chosen to leave unreformed. That is a choice that can be reversed.
The Ethics Reporter accepts confidential tips from litigants, attorneys, court staff, and anyone with first-hand knowledge of judicial misconduct. Submit tips at theethicsreporter.com/tip. We will continue to document the appellate record, report Commission determinations, and name the judges whose records demand public attention.
This report is based on published decisions of the Appellate Division, formal determinations of the New York State Commission on Judicial Conduct, Commission press releases, and investigative journalism from ProPublica, the New York Times, Law and Crime, CBS News, and other outlets cited above. The inclusion of a judge in this report does not constitute a legal conclusion that the judge has committed misconduct as defined by any disciplinary rule. All findings are grounded in the public record. Sources are linked throughout. Readers with first-hand evidence of additional judges whose records meet the criteria above should consider filing a Commission complaint and submitting a tip to The Ethics Reporter.
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