The US District Court for the Southern District of New York dismissed a corruption indictment against New York City Mayor Eric Adams on Wednesday. This ruling comes in response to a motion filed in February by the Department of Justice (DOJ), requesting that the indictment be dismissed without prejudice.
Charges dismissed without prejudice can be re-filed in the future while charges dismissed with prejudice may not be. As noted, Wednesday’s court ruling dismissed the charges with prejudice, which means that the Government cannot refile the same charges against Adams in the future.
The DOJ argued that dismissal is necessary due to alleged appearances of impropriety and cited an op-ed written by former US attorney for the Southern District of New York, Damian Williams, as an example of perceived misconduct on the part of the prosecution. The DOJ added that a dismissal is justified under executive order 14147, which is designed to combat weaponization of government.
The DOJ further argued that the indictment would interfere with Adams’ ability to govern the city and specifically cited the negative impact that the court proceedings would have on executive orders 14159 and 14165, both of which are intended to increase border security and immigration enforcement.
Rule 48 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure states: “The government may, with leave of court, dismiss an indictment, information, or complaint.” This effectively means that the prosecution has to get the court’s permission to dismiss charges.
Although Judge Dale Ho ruled in favor of the mayor, he made it quite transparently clear that he was not missing the Justice Department’s tricks. Ho suspected that the federal government may be engaged in a quid pro quo arrangement in which the corruption charges are dropped in exchange for immigration policy concessions. He feared that a dismissal without prejudice would mean that the DOJ would hold a point of leverage over Adams and / or the City of New York through a threat of future charges against the mayor:
Dismissing the case without prejudice would create the unavoidable perception that the Mayor’s freedom depends on his ability to carry out the immigration enforcement priorities of the administration, and that he might be more beholden to the demands of the federal government than to the wishes of his own constituents.
Nevertheless, Ho’s ruling to dismiss the charges may offer little comfort to the former federal prosecutors who resigned in protest of the motion contending that the action is an improper use of prosecutorial discretion. Former Watergate prosecutor Nathaniel Akerman has also urged the court to appoint a special counsel to review the DOJ’s motion to dismiss charges.