NY chief judge faces ethics complaint from GOP lawmakers

Chief Judge Rowan Wilson speaking at a Second Look Act symposium on Feb. 27, 2026. Comments he made at the symposium were the subject of an ethics complaint filed by Republican state lawmakers on Wednesday, March 11, 2026.  File photo by David Handschuh/OCA

By Jacob Kaye

A group of Republicans in Albany this week filed a formal ethics complaint against New York’s top judge, claiming he went too far in advocating for the passage of a sentencing reform bill during a symposium in Queens last month.

The lawmakers, led by the ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Anthony Palumbo, filed a grievance with the Commission on Judicial Conduct against Chief Judge Rowan Wilson on Wednesday.

The Republicans said that Wilson crossed an ethical boundary when he issued his support for the Second Look Act, a sentencing reform bill currently being debated in the legislature, during a symposium about the bill hosted at the CUNY School of Law in Long Island City.

The lawmakers also took issue with a moment during the symposium when Wilson encouraged attendees to vote out judges with a history of issuing lengthy sentences.

In their complaint to the commission, the lawmakers alleged that Wilson’s comments helped to cast doubt on the chief judge’s ability to act impartially on the bench.

“If the chief judge can talk like this, what do you think that will do to empower other judges on either side?” Palumbo said on Wednesday. “This should be a non-partisan issue.”

“There is no room for politics in the judiciary,” he added.

Judges – and judicial candidates – are largely discouraged from commenting on political matters that may come before them at some point down the line. They are also explicitly barred from participating in a number of political activities, particularly those surrounding fundraising or campaigning for another candidate for office.

Al Baker, a spokesperson for the Office of Court Administration, defended Wilson’s comments in a statement on Wednesday, claiming they fell well within the bounds of his job as the leader of the state’s courts.

“It is appropriate for the chief judge to express his views on pending legislation that affects the court system,” Baker said. “It is also appropriate for him to speak publicly about proper judicial temperament and values, and to encourage New Yorkers to stay informed about the conduct of the judges serving their communities and to participate in the processes by which those judges are elected or appointed. Those are the points that the chief made at this symposium, consistent with his role as the chief judge of the state.”

While the Commission on Judicial Ethics collects all complaints against judges in New York, it does not launch a formal investigation into every complaint. In 2025, the commission received over 3,300 complaints and launched 141 investigations, according to the commission’s recent annual report.

The commission does not disclose whether or not a complaint has been elevated to an investigation until it reaches a public decision and potential punishment, which could include an admonition, censure, removal from office or forced retirement.

Republicans in the Assembly and Senate, led by Senator Anthony Palumbo (speaking), filed an ethics complaint against Chief Judge Rowan Wilson on Wednesday, March 11, 2026. Screenshot via New York Assembly Republican Conference/Facebook

Wilson has long advocated for the passage of the Second Look Act, dedicating his entire 2025 State of the Judiciary address to the reform. The bill would give New Yorkers serving lengthy prison terms an opportunity to have their sentences reviewed. No current process for challenging potentially excessive sentences exists – unless the sentence was handed down illegally.

During his 2025 speech, Wilson invited several currently incarcerated New Yorkers to speak to some of the top officials in the state’s courts and legislature and to make the case that they should be given an opportunity to be released on parole. When giving his brief remarks, Wilson said the issue of sentencing reform fell squarely on the court’s shoulders.

“Overincarceration has everything to do with the courts,” Wilson said in 2025. “No prosecutor, no jury, no legislator or executive branch official imposed a prison sentence. Everyone sentenced to prison in New York was sentenced by a judge of the Unified Court System.”

The chief judge continued his advocacy throughout 2025. At a December symposium, Wilson, the former chair of Neighborhood Defender Services of Harlem, said the issue of sentencing reform had mattered to him “in some form or another since the 10th grade.”

But Palumbo and his fellow lawmakers said that while they have long took issue with Wilson’s public support of the Second Look Act, a new boundary was crossed during the Feb. 27 symposium, which was hosted by the Center for Community Alternatives and the CUNY School of Law.

Wilson said that the state’s current sentencing practices were “stupid.” He argued that judges, over the past several decades, have handed out large sentences to defendants whom they know little about, which then requires the state to spend large sums of money to keep them incarcerated for years. And while many transform their lives while incarcerated, they are left with few ways to contribute to society, the chief judge said.

As the top judge of the Court of Appeals, Wilson also said that he recently came across a motion that featured a trial transcript in which the judge called the defendant an “animal” and said they should be “put in a cage” for the rest of their life. Wilson called the comments “distressing” and said judges who approach sentencing in a similar way shouldn’t be serving on the bench.

“Judges here are elected, or in some cases, they're appointed by elected officials, and one thing that all of you can do is find out who those people are…[and] when those judges come up to be elected, don't vote for them, get other people not to vote for them,” he said. “That's something you can do for me.”

Thomas Gant, a community organizer at the Center for Community Alternatives, backed Wilson’s comments after the Republican lawmakers announced the complaint on Wednesday.

“The outrage from partisan lawmakers over an alleged 'negative endorsement' is a calculated distraction from the true moral crisis in our justice system,” Gant said. “Chief Judge Wilson highlighted a horrifying reality: there are judges on the bench who refer to human beings as 'animals' and condemn them to die in cages without a second thought.”

“We proudly stand by the vital conversations held at our symposium and applaud the chief judge's moral clarity in condemning this dehumanization,” he added. “The pushback we are seeing is a transparent attempt to preserve the draconian, tough-on-crime sentencing structures of the 1980s and '90s. It is time for the legislature to focus on human lives, stop the political theater, and pass the Second Look Act.”

But Palumbo said Wilson’s comments were more suited for a politician, and not a member of the judiciary.

“[Judges] must project that image of neutrality and not suggest that they lean one way or another, whether for a particular party or not, because that is the nature of the beast,” he said. “And if you can't do that, you should be a legislator and not a judge.”

The top Republican on the Judiciary Committee has long opposed Wilson’s alleged penchant for advocacy.

Wilson was appointed chief judge in 2023 after Governor Kathy Hochul’s first chief judge pick, Appellate Division, Second Department Presiding Justice Hector LaSalle, was rejected by the Senate, which votes to confirm or deny chief judge picks. LaSalle’s nomination was opposed by a number of progressive groups, who later went on to champion Wilson’s nomination.

Palumbo, who sued the legislature over its initial rejection of LaSalle, said in 2023 after Wilson’s confirmation that he found his judicial record “very concerning.”

“His opinions and judicial reasoning are more suited for a law professor, than the state’s chief justice on the Court of Appeals,” Palumbo said at the time. “With progressives in the state legislature focused on advancing a pro-crime agenda, New Yorkers cannot afford to have a judiciary that ignores the rights and needs of crime victims. Sadly, with the confirmation of Judge Wilson, we will now have a chief justice that puts defendants’ rights above victims. His confirmation is not good for the courts, state residents, nor our system of checks and balances upon which our state constitution is based.”