Nina Radoff Morrison
How Judge Morrison decides
Patterns drawn from this judge's own signed orders. Every observation links to the order it came from.
What persuades
On a Fourth Amendment cell-phone border search she requires a warrant and probable cause and will exclude the fruits: a 'routine' suppression argument keyed to her own Sultanov holding, backed by a developed suppression-hearing record, can win even in a child-pornography case. She also scrutinizes good faith hard -- an agent who omits the actual trigger for a search from the warrant affidavit forfeits the good-faith exception.
“the Special Agent who prepared the subsequent warrant application misled the magistrate judge about the actual circumstances that led to the airport search, intentionally omitting the one and only item of specific information known to CPB that led Robinson to be targeted for secondary screening and a device search in the first place.”
Procedural preferences
Where both sides rely on voluminous materials outside the pleadings, she will exercise Rule 12(d) discretion to convert a motion to dismiss into one for summary judgment -- but only after Local Rule 12.1 notice and a real opportunity for the pro se party to submit its evidence. Litigants should expect a Rule 56 record, not just the pleadings, when they flood the docket with exhibits.
“the Court concludes that the procedural prerequisites for an application of 12(d) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure have been met, and it will exercise its discretion to convert Defendant's motion to dismiss into a motion for summary judgment.”
Cautions
Construes pro se filings liberally 'to raise the strongest arguments they suggest,' but dismisses where the legal theory is simply unavailable -- no state action against a public defender / Legal Aid Society under Section 1983, and no private right of action under criminal statutes (18 U.S.C. 241/242) or for bribery. Liberal construction does not rescue a non-cognizable claim.
“18 U.S.C. Sections 241 and 242 are 'both criminal statutes' which do not provide a private right of action ... 'no private right of action exists against a defendant for soliciting a bribe' because bribery 'is a criminal offense, not a basis for civil liability.'”
Treats a stay of the whole action as an 'extraordinary remedy' and will not grant an indefinite one on speculative grounds -- and a party cannot move for a stay on behalf of not-yet-appeared co-defendants who may become its adversaries. Move for relief on your own behalf, with a concrete, time-bounded justification.
“The Court has certainly found no case in which a court in a civil action has granted a motion filed by one party on behalf of a second party -- who has not yet appeared and who may end up being the first party's adversary -- for an indefinite stay.”
Motion outcomes
Counted from classified signed orders only. Percentages are shown only where the sample is large enough to be meaningful; smaller samples are reported as raw counts.
A "1 of 1" is one ruling, not a tendency. Treat small samples as illustrative, not predictive.
Signed rulings
A grounded sample of orders signed by this judge, with the verbatim dispositive language.
“For these reasons, Robinson's motion to suppress the evidence recovered from his iPhone is GRANTED.”
“For the reasons outlined herein, Defendant's motion, construed as a motion for summary judgment, is GRANTED, and this action is DISMISSED.”
“For the foregoing reasons, the Court grants Defendants' motion to dismiss Plaintiff's First Amendment, Sections 241 and 242, and bribery claims, and denies Defendants' motion to dismiss Plaintiff's Title VII claim.”
“Because Plaintiff's arguments raised in her sur-reply do not alter the Court's conclusions, the Court denies Defendants' motion to strike.”
“Williams has not shown any basis for relief under the demanding standards required by 28 U.S.C. Section 2254. Accordingly, the petition is denied. Additionally, a certificate of appealability will not issue, because Williams has not made a substantial showing of the denial of a constitutional right.”
“The Court grants Defendant Legal Aid Society's motion to dismiss.”
“for the reasons outlined above, the fact that Corporation Counsel has not yet determined whether it will represent the individual defendant police officers who may be facing a parallel CCRB investigation simply does not merit the 'extraordinary remedy' of an indefinite stay of Plaintiff's Section 1983 action. ... Defendant City of New York's motion is therefore denied.”
Caseload & timing
From public federal docket records for this judge.
As an active judge who took the bench in 2022, Judge Morrison has a young, fast-growing, and mostly pending docket. The most recent slice (spring 2026) is dominated by a surge of alien-detainee habeas petitions under 28 U.S.C. 2241 (e.g. P.P. v. Mullin, Diallo v. Lyons, Duong v. Maldonado, Cabanas Reyes v. Soto, Kuprashvili v. MDC Brooklyn, Alvarado Rodriguez v. Maldonado), alongside criminal prosecutions (United States v. Gumbs, United States v. Figueroa), FLSA, labor, and FMLA wage matters (Cherubin, Dolores Saravia Fuentes v. ICON), consumer credit-reporting cases (Ortiz v. TransUnion, Khan v. Alcon), Social Security appeals (Lopez), immigration mandamus suits (Qu v. USCIS, Urunov v. Edlow), and assorted contract and foreclosure matters. Case durations are not yet computable: too few cases have terminated, and this sample surfaced only pending recent filings. This is a caseload sketch from case-level records, not a measure of outcomes.