Muriel Goode-Trufant takes on corporation counsel post, but with criticism

Muriel Goode-Trufant's permanent confirmation as New York City’s top lawyer went smoothly earlier this month. Goode-Trufant has worked at the Law Department since 1991 and in 2011 was given the Law Department’s highest honor: the Corporation Counsel’s Award for Distinguished Legal Service. 

Attorneys who work closely with Goode-Trufant have stood by her ability to bring sound legal practices into her new role at the Law Department.  

“She is a Black woman who has survived five mayors, thirteen police commissioners, seven corporation counsels and countless City Council and agency heads, 99% of them white and male while doing the drudge-work at the Law Department” a colleague who currently works with her told City & State.  “It's her time to shine” 

However, despite her tenure, critics say they worry that as corporation counsel, Goode-Trufant will rubber-stamp Mayor Eric Adams’ use of emergency orders, among other concerns. The City’s Charter empowers the Law Department  to defend and assist city agencies and employees, but it also mandates the corporation counsel “maintain, defend and establish the rights, interest, revenues, property, privileges, franchises or demands of the city …or people.”  

Those most critical of Goode-Trufant say she doesn’t couple supporting public safety with accountability. There is disagreement over whether or not she possesses the congruity required in her new role to push-back on the mayor’s use of emergency orders, as courts have censured the Special Federal Litigation division, which Goode-Trufant has led, more than any other in the Law Department and caught its attorneys coaching police to commit perjury and destroying evidence. 

How Goode-Trufant balances her obligations between the mayor and New Yorkers will be a key test in her new role.  

Criticism over support for emergency orders

Goode-Trufant said she agreed with the mayor’s use of emergency orders during her Nov. 20 confirmation hearing before the Council’s Committee on Rules, Privileges and Elections, as Adams did last summer when he stepped in to block the implementation of Local Law 42, which would have banned all forms of solitary confinement in city jails.  

During the hearing, Speaker Adrienne Adams asked Goode-Trufant to commit to only endorsing mayoral emergency orders that are narrowly tailored, limited in time, and not used if rulemaking or legislation is an option.  Goode-Trufant’s response was to summarize the state law for emergency orders. “I take seriously our role in advising all our clients about the tools our state laws provide for emergency response,” she added. When asked, Goode-Trufant said she was convinced the emergency orders issued by the mayor over the past six months had fit the requirements of the statute.  She was approved to lead the Law Department by the City Council by a vote of 41 to six with three abstentions on Dec 5. 

Concerns came a week later when Adams met with Donald Trump's incoming border czar Tom Homan and the mayor indicated he would use emergency orders to suspend New York’s sanctuary city status. The mayor’s statement, so far, has gone unopposed by Goode-Trufant, feeding speculation of the mayor’s motives. “As Mayor Adams talks with Trump's border czar, New Yorkers are left wondering: is his goal at the meeting to advocate for us or to advance his own personal agenda and curry favor to get a pardon?”  former City Comptroller and mayoral candidate Scott Stringer said on social media.                    

The Council and Williams filed a lawsuit Dec. 9 in state Supreme Court aimed at nullifying the mayor’s use of emergency orders to stop Local Law 42 from being implemented. The suit argued the mayor’s orders were an “unlawful and unprecedented abuse” of emergency declaration power that no other mayor has used to undo democratic process. 

“Mayor Adams’ decision to exceed his legal authority, simply because he was overruled, undermines the foundation of our democracy, and it must be invalidated,” Speaker Adams said in a statement. “This lawsuit is aimed at ensuring mayoral abuse of democratic government cannot stand, and the human rights and safety crisis on Rikers caused by maintaining the status quo of failed policies and practices is discontinued.”

Experience touted

Despite the concerns, supporters remained confident in Goode-Trufant’s ability to take on the new post. 

“Muriel Goode-Trufant’s deep legal expertise and decades of public service experience have prepared her to serve our entire city government and help lead New York City forward as Corporation Counsel” Mayor Eric Adams said after her confirmation. 

Council Member Diana Ayala also noted that experience and more during Goode-Trufant’s confirmation hearing on Nov 20. “Experience is important, education is important, but so is having a good moral compass. And for that, you know, that is important to us as a body. Somebody is going to make sound judgments based on the law. Obviously, we don't want anyone neglecting that. But I just wanted to say that I'm really excited to see you here, Ayala said at the hearing.” 

Some of the City Council’s most stalwart progressives also have championed Goode-Trufant.  

“This administration has a reputation of ousting those who don't play by their rules or bend the rules, and there's a reported pattern of pushing out Black women with integrity who stand their ground. I would classify you as one such woman,” Council Member Crystal Hudson complimented Goode-Trufant during her confirmation hearing.

Critics’ worries

Zealously defending police, city agencies and city employees accused of wrongdoing is just part of the job of being a city attorney. But some critics have said she has favored law enforcement at the cost of being fair to people of color, noting her father's involvement in the infamous Philadelphia MOVE bombing in 1985 that left 11 people, including five children dead, and which Goode-Trufant had no involvement in.

"Sadly, she's walking on a path set by her father, former mayor of Philadelphia Wilson Goode, when he ordered the police to drop incendiary devices on the pan-Africanist group MOVE's headquarters and home," said Thomas Giovanni, a former Law Department chief of staff who worked at the agency from 2014 to 2022. "Her father chose violence over justice, and decimated several blocks in a poor community. His daughter has made a career choosing to defend similarly egregious police activities in an even larger police department, rather than using her power to help end such abuses of people who mostly look like her.”

Giovanni, who worked directly with Goode-Trufant, continued that, “Over the decades, from her positions, she personally has done more, over more time, to defend those who target Black and brown people than any other lawyer I can think of in New York City.”

“Those who describe her career as a 'success' for over three decades are not counting the suffering of literally millions of people of color, poor people, protesters, and incarcerated people whose suffering has spawned protests, sweeping reforms, and monitorships,” Giovani added. “Setting aside the human costs, those celebrating her successes are also not counting the billions of dollars that the city has paid, specifically for work she personally oversaw." 

A spokesperson for the Law Department, when asked to respond to the criticism, told City & Sate that “Muriel’s 33 years of public service speaks for itself.” 

Some council members have criticized her handling of the city’s vaccine mandate, which the state Supreme Court ruled was arbitrary and capricious and unconstitutional.  

“Muriel is more than willing to enforce lockdowns and vaccine mandates that have been declared unconstitutional, proven to be ineffective and admittedly were wielded as a political weapon rather than a public safety measure.  Instead of following the ruling, however, the city is appealing, again wasting taxpayer dollars while we have a workforce shortage” Council Member Joann Ariola told City & State.  

“Most recently, under her leadership, the Law Department has decided that parents should sign an unnecessary waiver of their legal right to sue the Department of Education as the city has not been providing special education services for some children,” Ariola added. “Everything she touches has a political slant to it.” 

Whistleblower complaints scrutinized

Critics also have pointed to non-litigation functions Goode-Trufant has fulfilled in her role that have produced ambiguous results, such as her supervision of the reporting of investigations into whistleblower complaints. Under the whistleblower law, all complaints are handled by the city’s Department of Investigation except those submitted by employees of the office of the Special Commissioner of Investigation which are handled by the Law Department. SCI whistleblowers told City & State that the reporting of their grievances were improperly managed by Goode-Trufant and in one case, one of them was improperly reported as closed regarding a city employee ensnared in federal litigation in matters unrelated to their whistleblower complaints.

Over the past three years four whistleblower complaints have been submitted by SCI employees.  

"Because the subject of some of our complaints was a key investigator who had been subpoenaed to testify in big headline-news cases, Goode-Trufant mishandled our filings to protect his credibility,” one of the whistleblowers, who asked for anonymity due to the investigation they were linked to, told City & State.  

“The Law Department takes all whistleblower complaints referred to our agency seriously.  We independently and thoroughly investigate each complaint and report our findings as the law requires” a department spokesperson told City & State, when asked for comment about the whistle-blower allegations made against Goode-Trufant.