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Family Court Updates
Court of Appeals Holds Attorneys for Children May Appeal Custody Determinations Independently of Parent-Parties
The New York Court of Appeals has resolved an Appellate Division split over whether attorneys for children (AFCs) can appeal custody determinations on behalf of their clients when neither parent has appealed. In Abdoch v Abdoch, the Court held that AFCs are authorized to appeal custody determinations on behalf of aggrieved children, even though children are not full parties to custody proceedings. The AFC in Abdoch had appealed a modified custody order issued by the family court in favor of the father and over the AFC’s objection. The mother filed a letter with the Appellate Division supporting the appeal rather than filing her own appeal. The Fourth Department dismissed the AFC’s appeal, following its precedent that children in custody cases lack appellate rights when the AFC is the sole appellant. The Court of Appeals reversed, holding that Family Court Act 1115 and 1120 authorize an AFC to appeal on behalf of their client. The Court did not address remaining questions of “how a parent’s participation or failure to participate in an appeal may bear on other issues raised on such an appeal.”
Emergency Removal Practices Face Mounting Constitutional Scrutiny in Federal Courts
New York City’s Administration for Children’s Services (ACS) is facing a growing docket of legal challenges to its emergency removal practices. The April 27, 2026, issue of News Picks highlighted a federal lawsuit filed to challenge an emergency removal of a toddler in Queens, one of at least nine similar lawsuits filed against ACS in recent years.
Another 42 USC § 1983 lawsuit, K.W. v The City of New York, et al., was brought by a Bronx father, K.W., on behalf of himself and his infant child against New York City and an ACS caseworker. ACS removed six-day-old infant K.A. from K.W. without a court order because of the mother’s history of child neglect and alleged abuse of her other children by different fathers, without making any allegations of unfitness against K.W. and without informing the family court that they had removed K.A. from his father’s care. K.A. and K.W. were then separated for three years. On May 19, 2026, the Second Circuit reversed an order dismissing the case for failure to state a claim. The Second Circuit held that K.W. “stated claims for unlawful seizure under the Fourth Amendment and for a violation of the right to procedural due process under the Fourteenth Amendment on behalf of the infant” and reversed the District Court’s finding of qualified immunity on behalf of the CPS caseworker who executed the removal. The Court reiterated that an extrajudicial, warrantless emergency removal of a child by ACS violates the Fourth Amendment right against unlawful seizure and the Fourteenth Amendment guarantee of procedural due process, unless there is both an imminent risk of danger and a lack of sufficient time for the agency to obtain a court order. The individual ACS employee was not shielded by qualified immunity because he should have known that his conduct as alleged violated clearly established constitutional rights.
In an effort to achieve systemic relief from ACS’s emergency removal practices, advocates filed a federal class action, Archer v City of New York, against ACS on May 28, 2026. The suit seeks declaratory and injunctive relief to end ACS’s emergency removal policy as violative of “children’s rights to be free from unreasonable seizures under the Fourth Amendment, parents’ and children’s rights to procedural due process, parents’ rights to substantive due process, and parents’ and children’s rights to be free from discrimination guaranteed by the Equal Protection Clause.”
Forensic Highlights
Troy’s Continued Funding of Flock Safety Ruffled Feathers
After city councilmembers voted to cancel funding on the Flock Safety (Flock) contract in May, Troy Mayor Carmella Mantello declared a state of emergency to keep funds and “film” flowing. Flock Safety brand cameras are largely found as automated license plate readers (ALPRs) that capture images of all passing vehicles and analyze them using software programs that tag a vehicle’s features like dents and bumper stickers, “turning these into searchable datapoints” per Deflock.org. A crowd-sourced map of many ALPR locations in New York can be found here.
As a result of the state of emergency, the city implemented new policies for continued use of this pervasive surveillance system. The portions of the policy that have been made public make no comment on the ability of police to download data and save it on their own servers instead of relying on any shortened retention policy from Flock or vice versa. Local Law 3 regarding a data retention policy remains pending, as does an Article 78 petition filed by the City of Troy against the Mayor for spending taxpayer dollars in this manner during a state of emergency.
The updated Troy policies on the use of Flock cameras can be found here. Still concerning to defenders, the policies will be “[c]ontinuing the City’s non-participation in Flock Safety’s National Lookup feature, except in cases involving violent felony offenses and only with specific authorization on an individualized basis by the Chief of Police” and data will still be shared “to intra-state agencies only and on a strict case-by-case basis.”
Since the City’s announcement of new policies and in the face of ongoing protests in Troy and Saratoga Springs, the Rensselaer County Sheriff’s Department has hosted Flock drone demonstrations under the guise that this technology would be used to find missing people. Activists from Deflock518 and local Indivisible groups continue to be vocal against the use of Flock and other ubiquitous surveillance tools.
Working Group in Saratoga Springs Continues to Demand Transparency of Flock Use
The existence of Flock cameras is nothing new in Saratoga Springs. However, the quiet installation of about a dozen new automated license plate readers (ALPRs) within the city has led to public protest from a new working committee. The committee, headed by Rene Rountree, operations lead for Indivisible ADK/Saratoga, is also comprised of members of Indivisible Albany. Rountree and the working group are rightfully concerned about a lack of transparency into the city’s contract with Flock and any memoranda of understanding between the city and agencies. Among key concerns, the surveillance and reporting of activities of immigrants to U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is paramount. Further, while city police purport to retain Fock ALPR data for 30 days, Flock retains footage for six years.
National Flock “Mission Creep” and What Some Privacy Rights Groups are Working Toward
Concerns over use of Automated License Plate Reader (ALPR) cameras from brands like Flock and others is reaching a critical point as national news highlights the “mission creep,” so deemed by the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Notably, the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) joined over 40 civil society groups, including the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL), in a recent plea for Congress to ban the use of ALPRs for any use other than tolling. The full letter is linked here. Unfortunately, a House committee blocked this bill.
Also see EPIC’s amicus brief filed in support of Plaintiffs-Appellants in the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals for additional insight into the unconstitutionality of a mass dragnet using ALPRs and for potential arguments in your cases.
Some pertinent articles are linked below:
Immigration News for Defenders
WNYRIAC Newsletter Includes Info Affecting Naturalized Citizens
The June 2026 issue of the Western New York Regional Immigration Assistance Center (WNYRIAC) includes an article entitled Immigration Consequences for Naturalized Citizens. This is “[a]n overview of a naturalization applicant's duty to report all criminal conduct in their application for citizenship and defense counsel’s duty to advise naturalized citizens of the immigration consequences that may result from a conviction.” It stresses that “defense attorneys must obtain immigration advice for all clients not born in the United States even if they have naturalized.”
The newsletter also provides policy updates, one on new requirements for obtaining a green card from within the U.S. and one on the NYS Legislature’s passage of limits on local cooperation with ICE, with a reference to a post on the Governor’s website about that and other bills that were part of the budget. As always, NYSDA thanks WNYRIAC for sharing vital immigration information with the defender community, including a list of ways RIACs support mandated defense counsel.
Local Police Search Violations Cited in ICE Case
A May 29th article on Law.com reported that a habeas decision from a Manhattan federal court could be a “game-changer.” The article said that “[p]ublic interest and Gibson Dunn attorneys told Law.com they believe the decision marks the first time that a federal court has forced ICE to release an immigration detainee over Fourth Amendment violations committed by local police.” A Gibson Dunn post on June 4 summarized the story. At the root of the matter was a call from the Nassau County Police Department to federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
Featured Highlights
New Veterans Treatment Court Announced in May
In May, the Unified Court System announced the opening of the state’s first Superior Court for Veterans Treatment. The Warren County Veterans Treatment Court (VTC) has “jurisdiction to serve justice-involved veterans, experiencing addiction and/or mental health challenges, charged with any criminal offense in the county or adjacent counties.” With the launch of this court, “there are now 39 VTCs operating in 30 New York counties encompassing urban, suburban, and rural communities,” the announcement noted. On May 25th, the (Kingston) Daily Freeman reported on the Ulster County VTC, which opened in November 2025.
NYSDA’s Veterans Defense Program (VDP) works closely with new and existing VTCs “to provide training and other technical assistance to judges, prosecutors, defense attorneys, mentors, coordinators, and other stakeholders,” as noted in budget testimony offered by VDP Director Nancy Farrell in February. The VDP also provides assistance to public defenders and their clients who may benefit from involvement in a VTC; see the Peer-to-Peer Case Study in VDP’s 2025 Annual Report.
Judges Must Visit Detention Facilities
A Unified Court System news release on June 15th “announced significant amendments to Part 17 of the Rules of the Chief Judge, that will require judges serving in criminal and family courts to conduct at least one visit per year to a prison, jail, or other detention facility, starting January 1, 2028.” TheCityReporter.nyc noted on June 12th that this “change follows years of uneven compliance with an existing visitation requirement” that was put into place following the Attica uprising of 1971. A BloombergLaw.com article, observing that defense attorneys need to inform judges about conditions in detention facilities, quoted NYSDA’s Executive Director on the additional point that “‘judges need to see and hear it themselves.’” A September 29, 2025, request for comment on this rule was said to have yielded “146 comments totaling more than 400 pages from judges, attorneys, correctional administrators, medical and mental health professionals, academics, clergy members, formerly incarcerated people and advocacy organizations.” The proposal also yielded cautions, such as the November 12th op-ed by Lauren Wachtler in the New York Law Journal saying that judges’ prison tours should be conducted by people concerned about the conditions experienced by people in prison, not by representatives of the prison system itself. Going forward, clients facing potential incarceration or with family court matters that may be impacted by incarceration, will continue to need their lawyers to be aware of, and advise them, about conditions of confinement; see, for example, the May-August 2025 issue of the REPORT.
Law Journal Covers Two New Programs to Bring Younger Attorneys to Rural NY
The New York Law Journal covered two programs intended to increase attorneys in rural New York; Rural Pathways, an internship program for law students, and Rural Ready, a program for attorneys at any stage of practice.
Rural Pathways began in the summer of 2025, placing interns in Otsego, St. Lawrence and Clinton counties, and expanded to Oneida and Herkimer counties this year. Interns change offices every week, rotating through private firms as well as district attorney and public defender offices. Presiding Justice of the Third Department Elizabeth A. Garry, one of the spearheads of the program, specifically mentions rural public defender offices not receiving applications in response to job postings as an animating reason for the creation of the internship.
Rural Ready, “a partnership between the New York State Bar and the Courts,” offers a centralized website offering county-by-county job postings, as well as a list of local “rural ready ambassadors” to offer advice on quality-of-life issues like local school districts and real estate. Public defender positions in numerous counties are currently posted. NYSDA’s Career Center is another resource for those seeking employment and internships in public defense offices.
Both programs were broadly initiated as a response to the 2020 Report of the New York Bar Association Task Force on Rural Justice. That report highlighted an age imbalance across the state, quoting one survey taker as writing: “This county has no public defender office; all indigent legal defense is 18-b.We are running out of defense attorneys who are willing/able to take cases because more attorneys are retiring or leaving the area than those coming in to replace them.”
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