A recent opinion (#23-158) issued by the Advisory Committee on Judicial Ethics and published on July 21 by the New York Law Journal caught my attention.

The inquiring judge had run a campaign for judicial office "on an apparently unequivocal campaign pledge to incarcerate offenders, exclude drug dealers from the community, ensure maximum sentencing of repeat offenders, and protect victims of domestic violence …" As noted in the opinion, these statements were made in the inquiring judge's written campaign literature without "qualifiers or caveats and were expressly identified as pledges or promises. Further, they were made in the context of the candidate's law enforcement and/or prosecutorial background."