Judges Generally Let Prosecutors Drop Charges. Maybe Not for Adams.

Federal judges have almost no ability under the law to refuse a government request to drop criminal charges.

The corruption case against Mayor Eric Adams of New York may be the exception.

On Thursday, Manhattan’s top federal prosecutor, Danielle R. Sassoon, resigned rather than obey an order to seek dismissal of the charges against the mayor. The directive was issued by Emil Bove III, the acting No. 2 official in President Trump’s Justice Department and his former criminal lawyer.

Mr. Bove wrote that the demand had nothing to do with the strength of the evidence against the mayor or legal theories in the case. Rather, he said the charges would interfere with Mr. Adams’s ability “to devote full attention and resources to the illegal immigration and violent crime that escalated under the policies” of the Biden administration.

After Ms. Sassoon’s resignation as head of the Southern District of New York and those of at least seven Justice Department officials, Mr. Bove himself signed a motion on Friday asking the judge to dismiss the case.

It remains to be seen how the judge, Dale E. Ho of Federal District Court in Manhattan, will respond.

“Judge Ho could say this is a politically motivated decision and it affronts the grand jury process and the integrity of the court,” said Stephen Gillers, a professor of legal ethics at New York University School of Law.

Since Mr. Adams was indicted in September, the U.S. attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York has vigorously defended the charges against the mayor in court, continuing to do so after the Trump administration elevated Ms. Sassoon last month to lead the office. Judge Ho has repeatedly denied Mr. Adams’s requests to have the case dismissed.

Ms. Sassoon, in a letter Thursday to the attorney general, noted that Judge Ho had “stressed transparency” during the case. She said the judge was likely to conduct a rigorous and lengthy court inquiry that could be “detrimental to the department’s reputation, regardless of outcome.”

In her letter, Ms. Sassoon said that Mr. Bove’s suggestion that the issue was merely removing an obstacle to the mayor’s ability to help with federal immigration enforcement did not bear scrutiny.

“Rather than be rewarded,” Ms. Sassoon said, “Adams’s advocacy should be called out for what it is: an improper offer of immigration enforcement assistance in exchange for a dismissal of his case.”

Professor Gillers said Mr. Bove’s rationale for seeking dismissal of the charges would not sit well with the judge.

“Judge Ho will not accept that — should not accept that — as the justification for throwing out a grand jury decision to indict.”

Judge Ho, a graduate of Yale Law School, has been on the bench only a short time: He was appointed by President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and narrowly confirmed by the Senate in 2023. But few judges of any tenure have faced a situation like the one he confronts now.

In the past, even judges who have expressed reservations about a government request to drop charges felt compelled to go along, given their limited say.

The issue arose in 2020 during Mr. Trump’s first term, in the prosecution of Michael T. Flynn, his national security adviser. That year, Mr. Flynn, who had pleaded guilty to lying to the F.B.I., sought to withdraw his plea, and federal prosecutors in Washington moved to dismiss the indictment against him. When the judge overseeing the case, Emmet G. Sullivan, did not immediately grant the dismissal, Mr. Flynn took his argument to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia.

In a June 2020 decision, a three-judge panel of that court noted that “decisions to dismiss pending criminal charges” were squarely within a prosecutor’s purview and that circumstances in which a judge could intervene were limited. That precedent stands.

In a more recent case, federal prosecutors in Washington last month moved to dismiss an indictment against two men associated with the Proud Boys. They received clemency from Mr. Trump after pleading guilty in connection with the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.

The judge, Beryl A. Howell, wrote a scathing opinion criticizing the government’s rationale for asking to drop the charges — that Mr. Trump’s pardons and commutations for Jan. 6 offenses had ended “a grave national injustice that has been perpetrated upon the American people.”

“This court cannot let stand the revisionist myth relayed in this presidential pronouncement,” Judge Howell wrote, noting that the defendants had admitted to their conduct and had been afforded every protection guaranteed by the Constitution.

But Judge Howell said there were no “legitimate grounds” to deny the government’s motion, and she granted the request to dismiss the indictment.