New York, NY (LifeNews.com) -- A New York judge who denied a Chinese man asylum in a forced abortion case and ridiculed him in court has been removed from it by a federal appeals court. The rare decision to take the magistrate off the case came in a decision the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit issued Friday.

The appeals court ruled that Judge Noel Ferris mischaracterized the evidence in the case and improperly chastised Jian Zhong Sun at his asylum hearing in 2004.

Jian told the court that Chinese officials forced his wife to have an abortion despite the fact the pregnancy was her first under the nation's one-child rule. He said he had been threatened with sterilization when his wife had a second pregnancy and he fled to the United States before his daughter was born.

According to a New York Times report, the court found the decision to deny Jian asylum was “not supported by substantial evidence.”

The appeals court also ruled that Judge Ferris “note for the record” about Jian weeping in court about his situation and his characterization of that emotion "most troubling."

“I’m crying because I have not seen my daughter after 11 years," Jian told the judge during the hearing, the Times indicated.

When he cried again later in the hearing, Judge Ferris interrupted it and noted “the respondent's disproportionate behavior in this courtroom.”

“The judge was very fierce toward me," Jian told the Times about the hearing. “I felt very painful talking about the abortion. I was very upset and my tears were coming down my face, and the judge was very impatient. She told me to go out.”

“I felt very disappointed and hopeless, because this was my chance to tell my story,” he added. “I thank God and thank the U.S. government to give me dignity and give me rights.”