A Freedom of Information Act request has been made with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit about records of the State-Federal Judicial Council of the State of New York

I wrote on this blog about my battle with the New York State Court Administration to produce records - any records of the mysterious "State-Federal Judicial Council" which is not shown in any statutory provisions, no information is available as to its composition, operation, financing, and the only information that is available is the spotty proud announcements by various attorneys that they have been "appointed" - by whom, nobody knows - to the "Advisory Council" of that "Council".

There is this mysterious old "advisory", a federal public document, as to what such "councils" "may" discuss.

It is the most interesting document because - guess what - state judges are usually brought into federal courts as DEFENDANTS, so any "councils" between state and federal judges are ex parte communications between judges and defendants in federal civil rights actions.

I finally got one (ONE) document coughed up by the NYS Court Administration indicating ONE letter of appointment by New York State Chief Judge Lippman, on the last day in office, on December 31, 2015, to that "Council" (that's over nearly 40 years of the alleged existence of this "Council" - judging by this law review article written by a judge).

Here is the letter:

Based on information revealed in this letter, I made two federal Freedom of Information Act requests - 

1) to the federal appointing judge, that is, according to the letter above, the Chief Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit, my FOIA request is here,  and to

2) Judge Mae D'Agostino, of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York, who, Judge Lippman said, was the Chairperson of the Council as of December 31, 2015, the FOIA request is here.

Also offered for your attention is my printout from the database of non-profits, Guidestar.org, where I searched the database for the Federal-State Judicial Council.  

The search returned no information, so this "Council" is not a non-profit.

I simply want to know what is the legal authority to form it, appoint people to it, finance it, operate it, what is its structure, and who, and at what time, was appointed to it as judicial members and non-judicial "advisors" to judicial members.

I am also most interested in responses of these two judges, because both of them handle civil rights lawsuits AGAINST New York State judges, so I am most interested to see the list of members of this so-called Council.

Of course, I predict that I will be told that there are "no records responsive to my request" or any other such crap.

Yet, any answer to this request will be interesting, and I am looking forward to see how these two judges will be wiggling out of the situation.

I will post any responses to these requests on this blog.

Stay tuned.