Ballentine v. Jacob Barak and Post Graduate Center for Mental Health
- Analisa Torres
- 1:25-cv-00515
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In Ballentine v. Barak, Judge Moses denied Ballentine’s request to have her removed because he gave no basis for questioning her impartiality.
The ruling directly affected Quintin J. Ballentine’s request to remove Magistrate Judge Barbara Moses from the case; the motion was denied.
What happened
In Quintin J. Ballentine v. Jacob Barak and Post Graduate Center for Mental Health, Ballentine sent a letter saying that Magistrate Judge Barbara Moses appeared biased in favor of the defendants. He asked the court to consider removing her from the case, but did not explain the concerns behind his allegation.
The court said a judge must step aside when a reasonable, informed observer would significantly doubt the judge’s impartiality. It also explained that a judge’s rulings almost never establish a valid reason for removal by themselves.
The court found that Ballentine provided no basis for removal and denied his motion. Barbara Moses, the United States magistrate judge who issued the order, signed it on October 6, 2025.
The detailed version
- Ballentine v. Jacob Barak and Post Graduate Center for Mental Health · No. 1:25-cv-00515
- Analisa Torres
- Oct. 6, 2025
Background
Quintin J. Ballentine sent an October 1, 2025 letter expressing concerns that Magistrate Judge Barbara Moses had created an appearance of prejudice and favoritism toward Jacob Barak and Post Graduate Center for Mental Health. Ballentine did not identify the nature of those concerns. He asked the court to consider relief under 28 U.S.C. § 455(a), which addresses when a federal judge’s impartiality might reasonably be questioned, as well as provisions of the Code of Conduct for United States Judges.
Judge Moses construed the letter as a motion asking her to recuse herself—that is, to remove herself from the case because of possible bias.
Legal standard
The court explained that recusal motions are initially decided by the judge whose removal is requested. Under Section 455, a judge must step aside when the circumstances would cause an objective, disinterested observer who knows the relevant facts to have significant doubt that justice would be done without recusal. Bias or prejudice can arise from outside the case or from an extreme predisposition that shows a clear inability to decide fairly. Judicial rulings alone almost never provide a valid basis for recusal.
Ruling
Judge Moses found that Ballentine had supplied no basis for recusal, whether arising from outside the case or otherwise. The court therefore denied the motion at Docket 51. The order did not decide the underlying claims against the defendants.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.