Mayor Eric Adams is calling for forced rehab for New York City’s drug addicts, days after President Donald Trump threatened to send federal personnel into New York as he decried “drugged-out maniacs” in DC.
Adams said New York should join a majority of states in allowing involuntary commitments for people who endanger themselves or others through their drug use.

“Our proposed legislation will build on our success in Albany and give medical professionals the tools they need to get people connected with treatment,” the mayor, running for a second term as an independent, said Thursday.

Removing drug users — however they would be defined — from public view could mute criticism, particularly from Trump and other voices on the political right, that the city is overly tolerant of public intoxication and homelessness.

But there are logistical and political hurdles. Adams needs someone to introduce a bill in the state Legislature ahead of its possible approval in 2026. That could prove challenging— legislators in May loosened restrictions on forcing the mentally ill into treatment, but it was a political battle.

Adams is pitching his idea at a time when his popularity has reached new lows. A Siena poll released Tuesday shows him dead last in his bid for re-election. He might not even be mayor after Dec. 31, so lawmakers have good reasons to stay away from a Trump-friendly proposal that public defenders say is bad public policy.

“Forcing New Yorkers struggling with addiction into involuntary detention is traumatic, raises serious civil rights concerns, and does nothing to address the root causes of substance use,” The Legal Aid Society said in a statement.

—Zach Williams

The president of the New York State Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers wants the group to grow its ranks of young lawyers.

“A lot of organizations—I don’t think we’re alone—are top heavy,” Jessica Horani told me in a recent interview. “We have a lot of people that have incredible experience, that have been around and remain committed and involved in the association, which is great. But I’m interested in building up the leaders of tomorrow. That’s my personal agenda.”

Horani, the supervising attorney of the homicide and major case defense unit at New York County Defender Services, took the reins of the 1,400-member statewide association earlier this year from Barket Epstein’s Steven B. Epstein for a one-year tenure. The role puts her at the fore of some of the biggest battles impacting the state’s criminal defense attorneys.

NYSACDL, a statewide lawyer nonprofit group founded in 1986, represents the interests of private attorneys and public defenders. It’s an affiliate of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, a bar association with some 40,000 members.

It’s been an eventful tenure for Horani as the group lobbied against prosecutor-backed changes to New York’s criminal discovery laws. That fight ended in a draw, with modest reforms passing that took effect this month.

Now Horani is gearing up for her organization to fight against rollbacks to New York’s “Raise the Age” law, a measure that diverts minors out of criminal courts for some offenses.

Courtesy of Jessica Horani

NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch recently called for changes to that law, saying it “removed the criminal consequences that prevent teens from escalating violence until they or their rivals are either dead or facing adult sentences.”

Horani said the rhetoric being used now “kind of echoes that ‘90s ‘superpredator’ myth, and that’s something that I’m concerned about.”

“They’re going to try to use that to roll back what I think are important reforms. So that’s going to be something that’s a high priority for us to fight against,” she said.

Horani took my lightning round questions, below:

Why should new lawyers do criminal defense instead of civil practice? I can think of few other jobs where you’re able to be that intimately involved in another person’s life, when they are potentially in one of the worst positions that they might be in, and you have the opportunity to make an immediate impact.

Which judge is a model of fairness? I think somebody else said this too—but Chief Judge Rowan Wilson.

Favorite New York courthouse? 100 Centre Street. That’s where the action happens. That’s where I was as a younger attorney representing clients on misdemeanor cases, and you’ve also had some of the biggest cases there in recent years—Weinstein. It’s New York City. There’s a lot that happens, from the mundane to the big press cases, so it’s exciting.

I’m speaking to legal leaders across the state. Read my interview with the New York State Trial Lawyers Association president here, New York County Lawyers Association president here, and the New York State Bar Association president here. Email me at mvilensky@bloombergindustry.com.

A Manhattan couple‘s petition challenging a tax deficiency was timely filed, the Second Circuit said, in a decision reversing its own 40-year-old precedent.

The tax code provision giving taxpayers 90 days from when the IRS mails a notice of tax deficiency to contest it is a non-jurisdictional rule subject to equitable tolling, which is an exception to the 90-day limit, Judge Richard J. Sullivan said Thursday. Recent US Supreme Court decisions offered the circuit fresh eyes to take another look at the Tax Code and the 1985 ruling that had come out the other way, my colleague Tristan Navera reports.

The decision is a win for Mark Buller and Sarah Beatty, who filed their challenge late, then requested equitable tolling because the delay was caused by circumstances outside their control.

Based on a new reading, the Second Circuit determined the 90-day rule doesn’t require dismissal of the challenge “because Congress has not clearly imbued the filing deadline in section 6213(a) with jurisdictional consequences.”

The court here joined the Third Circuit, which held in in 2023 that the same provision was non-jurisdictional and subject to equitable tolling. Read More