Anil Singh Blazes a Path for South Asian Judges in Empire State

When New York Justice Anil Singh emigrated to the US from India at 18 years old, the idea of being a judge wasn’t in his mind—perhaps, he said, because there weren’t other South Asian judges at the time.

“Maybe in the back of my head I had a dream that I wanted to be a judge, but it was not a dream that I could really articulate because there wasn’t anyone to articulate it to,” Singh, 65, said. “There weren’t South Asian judges that I could call and say, ‘Hey, how do I do this?’”

A recent New York State Bar Association report found that for the Latinx and Asian communities, the gap between their respective share of the population and of state judges remains larger for both communities than it was in 1991.

The statistics make it all the more notable that in 2017 Singh became the first South Asian person to sit on an appellate court in New York State. This May he became the first Asian American to sit on a New York state panel that investigates allegations of judicial misconduct.

Having judges of varied backgrounds gives citizens “a sense that there’s justice when there are people who look like them making decisions” regardless of outcomes, Singh said.

Rolando Acosta, former presiding justice of the 1st Appellate Department and Singh’s boss from 2017 to early 2023 said that Singh’s experience as an immigrant allows him to understand the importance of democratic institutions.

“As an immigrant, I appreciate what it is not to have that,” Acosta said. “I think Anil does, too.”

A Nontraditional Path

Singh didn’t follow a traditional career path. After graduating from Antioch School of Law in Washington, D.C., his first job was in the Civil Court as a principal court attorney to now-retired Justice Alice Schlesinger.

“I learned how to be a judge from her and how to be a better human being from her. I didn’t always agree with her but she was amazing,” Singh said of Schlesinger, who had previously been a lawyer with the Legal Aid Society.

He initially thought he would go into a legal services career and do public service work. That shifted when Schlesinger moved from the Civil Court to the Supreme Court and Singh went with her.

In 2002, three years after Schlesinger was elected to the Supreme Court, Singh was elected to fill her vacant seat at the Civil Court.

“She called me into her office and said, ‘I want you to run for my seat. I’ll show you what you’ve got to do.’ And sure enough for six months ... she took me around to events and introduced me to people. And that made the difference in terms of leaving me in a comfortable position,” Singh said.

Critics worried he wouldn’t understand what the caseload is like for lawyers and be able to work with their schedules, as he had not worked in private practice before joining the bench, but he said his first day in court was like landing a plane after serving as an assistant pilot.

“Since I had been doing the work for 15 years, it was a smooth adjustment,” he said.

New York Justice Anil Singh accepts an award from the South Asian and Indo-Caribbean Bar Association of Queens on Sept. 7, 2023.

Photo courtesy of the South Asian and Indo-Caribbean Bar Association of Queens.

Criminal Justice Cases

Singh has presided over a number of significant cases both as a Supreme Court judge and as part of the panel of justices at the appellate division, particularly in the area of criminal justice.

In May 2022, he penned a dissent when the 1st Appellate Department found that New York’s Division of Criminal Justice Services overstepped its authority when it expanded to familial searches the use of the state’s DNA Databank.

At issue is a regulation adopted by New York’s Division of Criminal Justice Services in 2017 that expanded to blood relatives searches of the state’s DNA Databank—a database that stores genetic information of New Yorkers who have been convicted of certain felonies. Under the regulation, law enforcement agencies could request a familial DNA search if they’ve determined there is no match or partial match to a sample in the databank.

New York residents Terrence Stevens and Benjamin Joseph, whose brothers are convicted felons, argue the expansion puts family members at risk of being targeted for investigation solely because they share genetics with a convict and that it disproportionately impacts people of color.

Singh and Associate Justice Jeffrey Oing dissented, saying Stevens and Joseph didn’t have standing to sue the state since their DNA is not in the databank.

The case is now being considered by the state’s highest court. During oral arguments Sept. 14, one judge in particular was skeptical of the plaintiffs’ arguments that fear of a potential police interaction gives relatives of convicted felons standing to sue the state over expanded use of a DNA database.

In 2021, he wrote the opinion for the appellate department that allowed the New York Supreme Court to proceed with a judicial inquiry into the death of Eric Garner in Carr v. de Blasio, and in 2014 authored the lower court opinion upholding a New York City law that made it easier for citizens to sue police officers performing unlawful stop-and-frisks based on race.

Singh was “exceptionally well prepared” and asked good questions, said James McGuire, who represented the police union in the stop-and-frisk case. McGuire also has served as an associate justice in the 1st Appellate Department, though his tenure never overlapped with Singh’s.

“He was just and had a superb courtroom demeanor,” said McGuire, who is now a partner with Holwell Shuster & Goldberg LLP.

Commission on Judicial Conduct

Singh is one of the newest additions to the 11-member New York State Commission on Judicial Conduct, which reviews complaints of ethical misconduct against state judges and justices.

But it’s hard to “judge your own village,” Singh admitted.

Singh said he gets a bit of playful pushback from friends who are also judges. He recounted an instance when he went out for drinks with a group of friends and one pretended to pat Singh down, saying they had to make sure he wasn’t wearing a wire.

“It’s totally natural to have those reactions. I used to have those reactions to the commission, too,” Singh said.

Joining the commission was also a natural progression for Singh. He has spent the last few years writing advisory opinions for the Advisory Committee on Judicial Ethics, which provides ethics advice to judges, justices, and quasi-judicial officials.

“I had a few years getting familiar with ethical issues that come up and how to resolve them. So I felt like it wasn’t a blank slate,” he said.

Looking ahead, he could see himself going into mediation or arbitration.

“Out of all my skill sets, I have good settlement skills. It’s a process I’ve always loved. It’s fascinating to be involved in a settlement. I haven’t been involved in a settlement in many years, but I used to be very, very hands on in terms of trying to settle cases,” Singh said. “That’s something I might in the future see doing.”