A hole in absolute judicial immunity defense in New York

New York mandatory judicial disqualification statute, Judiciary Law Section 14 provides:

I already wrote on this blog that Judiciary Law 14 thus

presupposes disclosure by judges of their family trees 

to the sixth degree of consanguinity or affinity, 

not that judges are going to do that, but that's what 

the law presupposes, again, because otherwise

this requirement is hollow and without any meaning. 

But, additionally Judiciary Law 14 provides

an interesting twist on the so-called "absolute judicial

immunity for malicious and corrupt acts" - a judicially

created concept, an unlawful restriction of 

jurisdiction of federal courts in civil rights cases 

that is not found anywhere in the text of 

the Civil Rights Act.

In its seminal case on absolute judicial immunity,

Stump v Sparkman, the U.S. Supreme Court claimed that

a judge is immune even if his or her actions are

"malicious and corrupt".

Enters Judiciary Law 14.

If a judge is "malicious", that means the judge's

intent in litigation is to cause injury to a litigant

or litigant's attorney - that is a personal interest

under Judiciary Law 14, stripping the judge of

jurisdiction, and judicial immunity does not apply

"in clear absence of all jurisdiction".

If the judge acts in a corrupt manner (was bribed,

with money or non-monetary benefits to the judge

or to whoever else the judge has a personal interest in),

it means that, under Judiciary Law 14, the judge

is "interested" in the outcome of the case and

"shall not sit", has no jurisdiction and is not 

subject to the judicial immunity defense.

As an added bonus, prohibition of Judiciary Law 14 

is jurisdictional, and makes decisions in violation 

of the statute not voidable,but void (when courts 

agree to actually apply the statute properly, 

which rarely happens, because judges in all courts 

are usually power-hungry and are very reluctant 

to obey the law imposing restrictions on their power).

Yet, the law is there, and it undermines the

concept of absolute judicial immunity for

civil rights state defendants in New York.