In Search Of Honest Judges
February 6th, 2006
Echoing sentiments expressed by Daily News columnist Errol Louis last week, an editorial in the New York Times A Turning Point For New York Courts, praises the federal court ruling that threw out “the clubhouse-controlled selection process” for picking New York’s trial judges. But the Times argues that, instead of the primaries that the judge ordered, there should be “a new merit selection system for the Supreme Court.”
In a post to Gotham Gazette’s blog, Albany Matters, Choosing Judges: So What Now?, Doug Israel remarks on the silence of such public officials as Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, Senate Minority Leader Joseph Bruno, and Governor George Pataki, “who have the power to legally change the way judges are selected in New York State…Maybe our leaders are gathering their thoughts….Or maybe they are lamenting the demise of the carefully scripted nomination process”
An editorial in the Daily News, The Rules Apply To You Too, Judge,points in effect to what’s wrong with the present system, with an attack on Frank Seddio, a member of the Assembly who “opened his checkbook for the Brooklyn Democratic organization three times last summer” and was “anointed” to the newly-created position of second Brooklyn Surrogate Court Judge.
In her column in the New York Times today, Joyce Purnick criticizes the way Governor George Pataki has appointed judges to the appellate court: “Imagine being the Republican governor, looking down from Albany at all those Democratic judges in New York City. What do you do? If you are Gov. George E. Pataki, you import judges…The governor’s last seven appointments to the appellate court that covers Manhattan and the Bronx — the Appellate Division’s First Department — have been from Utica, Dutchess, Putnam, Suffolk and Albany Counties, and from Queens and Brooklyn (part of the Second Department)…. The last seven Pataki selections are white men: six Republicans and one conservative Democrat.”
By Jonathan Mandell on February 6, 2006, 5:35 amIn category: Governing, Law | 1 Comment »

May 4th, 2006 at 5:39 am
[...] In January, a federal court judge, John Gleeson, ruled (pdf format) that New York’s process of choosing Supreme Court Judges violates voters’ and candidates’ rights by giving too much power to county party leaders. (Wonkster summarized the reactions around the city at the time.) [...]