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The one thing they did not do is let voters know where they stand on any issues -- not on housing, not on crime, not on taxes.
That is because the two women are facing off for Civil Court judge, a job which is supposed to be non-political. "Judicial candidates are not allowed to take positions on issues," said Jacob Walthour, Simpson's campaign manager and her husband. "They must remain independent, objective and fair."
While the office itself is supposed to be removed from politics, getting into such an office in New York City could not be more political.
Simpson and her opponent, Jimenez, who is already a Housing Court judge, have hired political consultants, accused one another of "carpet bagging" since both recently moved to Brooklyn, and attacked each other in the press. (Electing Simpson would give Brooklyn Democratic boss Clarence Norman "a new lease on life," says one side; Jimenez has surrounded herself with "shady characters," charges the other.) In other words, they have acted like politicians.
But tough campaigning is the least of the problems in New York's judicial system.
In the last year, three Brooklyn State Supreme Court Judges have been removed from their seats for bribery and other illegal activity. Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes is currently investigating Brooklyn Democratic Party Chairman Clarence Norman, looking into whether the party is selling judgeships.
Even if there were no scandals, the city's court system is so confusing and complex that it takes a New York State Supreme Court Justice to explain them (see "Guide to the Courts" by Justice Emily Jane Goodman).
Some say the system needs a complete overhaul. Others say that this will never happen, thanks to politics. Indeed, a plan created by the top judges of the state to reform and restructure the court system has been stuck in the state legislature for five years.
Meanwhile, the battles rage on.
BROOKLYN'S JUDICIAL MESS
"If you want to study how not to pick a judge," a recent editorial in the New York Times began, "the borough of Brooklyn is available."
Last year, former Supreme Court Justice Victor Barron pleaded guilty to taking bribes to fix divorce and child custody cases and is currently serving a sentence of three to nine years in prison. This summer, Supreme Court Justice Gerald Garson was indicted on charges that he fixed a divorce case in return for money and gifts. And Justice Reynold Mason was removed from the State Supreme Court for illegally taking money from an escrow account on a rent-controlled apartment in Flatbush, and using the money to make child support payments and political contributions.
The Brooklyn D.A.'s investigation of Clarence Norman includes a look at allegations that Norman demanded money from candidates for office in return for his endorsement. Candidates have told prosecutors that the party bosses demanded cash payments and required them to hire specific consultants. Anyone who does not go through the process, the candidates allege, is almost assured of defeat.
Beyond the specific charges of illegal activity, many say the entire system of electing and selecting judges is a game of political patronage.
For example, in order to become a State Supreme Court Judge in Brooklyn, a candidate must be selected by Chairman Norman. Those candidates are then referred to a screening panel that is also appointed by Chairman Norman. The 42 Democratic District leaders, who often have strong ties to the party, then screen the candidates. Finally, the judges are selected by a judicial convention, made up of various friends, relatives, business partners and employees of the party overseen by Chairman Norman.
Only after this process, does the voter, who often has no idea who the candidates are or how they were chosen, select a State Supreme Court Judge, who will serve on the bench for 14 years.
"There's a general feeling out there that the party has become a laughingstock of the state," Alan Fleishman, a Brooklyn Democratic district leader, told Newsday.
Brooklyn is not unique. Every borough runs in a similar fashion, which means that the city's judges are often selected more for their loyalty to the party than for their qualifications.
THE LONG RUNNING DEBATE -- APPOINTED VS. ELECTED
The "Tweed" County Courthouse that sits behind City Hall is a reminder of the historical links between corrupt politics and the courts in the city.
Built between 1862 and 1870, the old county courthouse with its arched windows and sunlit rotunda was supposed to cost $250,000. It ended up $13 million over budget, much of which was stolen by Tammany boss William M. Tweed and used for his Democratic political machine. (The building underwent another $100 million renovation beginning in 1999 and today houses offices for the Department of Education.)
The scandal surrounding the Tweed Courthouse helped spark two efforts for judicial reform in New York.
At the same time, citizens began to think that the system of elected judges, set out in the state's 1846 Constitution, wasn't such a good idea. The introduction of appointed judges became an attempt to keep the political parties out of the judicial system and streamline the system. In 1870, the Association of the Bar of New York City was founded to provide standards for lawyers and judges.
Today in New York City, judges are selected through a mix of elections and appointments. The mayor appoints local judges in Criminal and Family Courts. Elected judges serve on Civil, Surrogate's, and Supreme Courts.
But the fundamental argument is still unresolved. Should judges be appointed or elected by the people?
Advocates of appointment argue that judges cannot be independent if they are worried about raising campaign funds, presenting a public image, and are involved in a political process that is often corrupt. Most voters, they say, have little interest in or knowledge about judges running for seats.
Advocates of elections argue that judges should answer to the law and the people it sets out to protect, not the policymakers who appoint them. They criticize the mayor and the governor for using their political will in selections and say that appointed judges do not reflect the ethnic composition of the city.
And court positions still have plenty of connections to elected politicians, powerful lawyers, and local political parties vying for bragging rights. Although the starting salary of $125,600 a year for a Civil Court judge doesn't compare to what a lawyer can make in private practice, a local judgeship carries the prestige that can launch a career in politics or lead to promotions to higher courts.
With so much at stake, true reform is difficult.
NAVIGATING THE CITY SYSTEM
Jonathan Lippman, the Chief Administrator of State Courts, has called the New York City courts "the most complex, arcane court system in the country."
The city's court system, which produces about half of all the cases in the state, is a maze of trial divisions.
One example of how unwieldy the system can be is in how family issues are handled.
Child custody and visitation are handled in Family Court, but divorces can only be addressed in Supreme Court. So a family in a divorce can find itself bouncing back and forth between both courts, spending twice as much time and money than if it went through the same case living in the suburbs. Adoptions can be handled in either Family Court or Surrogate's Court depending on the conditions. If criminal charges such as abuse are involved in a domestic case, then it can spill over into Criminal Court.
THE LONG, HARD ROAD TO REFORM
In response to the Brooklyn judicial scandals, some changes have been made.
In July, the Brooklyn Democratic Party released the names of the 27 candidates running for State Supreme Court for the first time in the city's history; in the past these names were kept secret. And the party was also looking at new ways to appoint independent lawyers to the judicial screening panel.
But many legal reform groups say the whole system must be overhauled and favor a kind of third way known as merit or nomination systems.
A merit system uses nonpartisan commissions of lawyers and non-lawyers to find applicants for judgeships. The commission then submits the applicants to an appointing authority. For re-appointments, the judges are evaluated by commissions or voted on in an uncontested election.
In New York, judges in the Court of Appeals are selected through what its backers call a merit system, what its critics call a system of political appointment. But even proponents of a merit system concede that they won't be a widespread part of the New York courts anytime soon.
As far as the overall court structure, Chief Administrator of the State Courts, Jonathan Lippman and Chief Judge Judith Kaye first introduced a plan to reform the New York trial courts system in 1997. Numerous good government and judicial reform groups have supported the proposal.
Five years later, the proposal is still sitting in Albany.
"Judgeships are the last bastions of political patronage," said Barbara Reed of the Fund for Modern Courts. "They allow local party leaders to maintain control."
In the short time since Councilmember James Davis was murdered July 23rd in the City Council's chambers on the second floor of City Hall, New Yorkers have struggled to make sense of this homicide, to little avail. Our bafflement is in part due to the historical peculiarity of the crime. Until Wednesday, City Hall was, and always had been, one of the safest places in New York. Davis's murder was unprecedented. Historians have been unable to find any record of any other murder in City Hall itself.
Just as puzzling as Davis's brutal murder is his public persona that combined charm and coercion. He was an affable, charming, conscientious official who had fought powerful establishment organizations--the Brooklyn Democratic machine and the City Council leadership--but maintained friendships with his opponents. Indeed, his two most influential antagonists, City Council president Gifford Miller and Brooklyn Democratic boss Clarence Norman, both praised him lavishly after his death. Even his killer, Othniel Askew, was a political rival whom he had befriended and, he believed, won over. Yet Askew's rage was so great that he emptied his gun into Davis's body, shooting all seven bullets, according to Police Commissioner Ray Kelly. Kelly also said Askew was carrying more bullets in his sock.
The only mayor ever gunned down while in office was William Gaynor, who was shot across the river from City Hall, in Hoboken, New Jersey, in August 1910. James Gallagher, a former city employee who had been laid off during Gaynor's fiscally stringent administration, leapt to the podium where Gaynor was speaking and shot him in the back of his neck, just below his right ear.
Gallagher had repeatedly written the mayor and other officials and shown up at City Hall, asking to be reinstated in his job. After he was wrestled to the ground by a mayoral bodyguard, he was found to be carrying in his pocket a letter from the mayor's secretary: "He can do nothing for you in the matter in which you write."
The city was stunned. A mayoral aide said that "public office is no longer safe." State legislators apparently agreed, and passed the Sullivan lawin 1911, which required that handgun owners apply for permits from the police department. This was the first step in the long process culminating in New York City's having the most stringent gun control procedures in the country--procedures that were not successful, however, in keeping a gun out of the hands of Davis's killer. In fact, Askew had followed the well-worn path of thousands before him by buying a handgun in North Carolina, which has almost no gun regulation, and transporting it to New York, probably by truck. Commissioner Kelly told New York One that "we're plagued by guns bought elsewhere," naming such Southern states as Georgia and Alabama.
Councilmember Davis was himself armed. As a former police officer, he held onto his service weapon and to the permit that came with it. Acquaintances said he was proud of the gun and would sometimes whip open his coat to show it. One of the most sensible recommendations subsequently implemented at City Hall is a ban on all guns other than those carried by police officers on duty. Most New Yorkers are surely amazed to have found out that procedures were ever otherwise. After all, a gun permit does not entitle the holder to carry a gun everywhere.
Mayor Gaynor survived his shooting for three more years, but in great pain, with the bullet permanently lodged beneath his right ear. Councilmember Davis was dead on arrival at the hospital that afternoon. Both were murdered by angry men, perhaps deranged men, in circumstances in which they should have been safe. Gallagher was found to be suffering from paresis and was confined to the New Jersey Hospital for the Insane, where he died, according to Gaynor biographer Lately Thomas. Askew's life is now being investigated by the NYPD, though his family expressed surprise and shock at the killing.
Ironically, during a July 17 interview with Brooklyn-based freelance writer Carla Thompson, the late council member spoke of the importance of psychological testing in the issuance of gun permits. "We are failing across the board in psychological testing. People who have gun permits need to be screened," said Davis. He recommended screening for potential foster parents and cops on the beat. "[Cops] are screened at first, but who's to say he or she doesn't get burned out? They need to be re-screened." He added, "You can't check enough. When you have a wait-and-see attitude, tragedies happen."
And a tragedy did happen, though we do not know yet whether Askew--like his predecessor Gallagher--was mentally unstable. What we do know is that the ancient principle of assassinations still stands--a killer who is willing to die cannot easily be deterred. Add to that the oddity of Davis's having let his murderer bypass the gun-detection machines and we have a new scenario for the future: everyone, including the mayor and visiting dignitaries, will be required to go through security machines.
What are we to conclude from this murder carried out in the very heart of City Hall? First, the NYPD performed flawlessly. A young plain-clothes officer shot and killed the assailant, without wounding any bystander. Second, the NYPD moved into a high terrorism alert, but calmly and methodically. As it uncovered the facts of the homicide, the department reopened the Brooklyn and Manhattan bridges and Lower Manhattan.
This murder did not represent a lapse in police judgment requiring punishment or reform, but rather a lapse in judgment by the promising politician who waved his killer past police barriers.
Julia Vitullo-Martin, a long-time editor and writer on urban affairs, is the former director of the Citizens Jury Project at the Vera Institute of Justice. She is now writing a book entitled The Conscience of the American Jury.
Last New Year's Eve, a three-year-old child in Brooklyn suddenly collapsed, had a seizure and was rushed to Kings County Hospital in Brooklyn. The doctors inserted a tube in her throat to breathe, and another tube through to her stomach for nourishment.
The child never regained consciousness.
Thus was the beginning of a case that has resulted in a humane decision by Supreme Court Justice Doris Ling-Cohan, one that would not have been necessary if the New York State Legislature would pass a bill called the Family Health Care Decisions Act.
The Case
The doctors diagnosed the child as having suffered "massive loss of brain functioning" from an abnormal rate of heart muscle contractions. The child, the doctors concluded, would remain permanently unconscious, totally unaware of her environment, without the ability to think or interact - a vegetative state..The child was kept alive by a mechanical ventilator and the feeding tube.
The child's mother visited the unconscious child every day. Unwilling to continue to watch her daughter suffer without hope of recovery, the mother consulted the doctors, the hospital's medical ethics team, her family, and the child's father on whether to terminate life support. All parties agreed that ending life support was in the best interest of the child and the mother was fully capable of making that decision.
But the Health and Hospitals Corporation, the city agency that oversees the hospital, refused the mother's request.
Why The City Refused
In denying the mother's request, the Health and Hospitals Corporation cited its policy that prohibits staff from withdrawing or withholding care without the individual's consent.
The policy is rooted in the legal recognition that competent adults may refuse treatment. Children, however, cannot make this decision because they are not old enough. The question then arises, who can make that determination on behalf of a child in a vegetative state?
Most states, recognizing the care and love of family members, have left this determination to the family. New York, however, has not.
In 1981 the New York State Court of Appeals, the highest court in the State, ruled that the state is responsible for making the determination on behalf of a child and can supersede the wishes of the family. That case, Matter of Storar, found that the state serves as the omniscient parent for the public and may supercede a family's refusal to treat an individual.
Throughout the 1980's and 1990's most states began to recognize a parent's right to refuse unwanted medical care on behalf of their child in consultation with doctors without receiving court approval. In 1993 the first proposal in New York for family decision making to terminate life support was introduced in the Assembly. Every time the bill passed the Assembly it languished in the Senate..
Currently, New York and Missouri stand alone as the only two states that do not recognize that responsible parents, in conjunction with doctors and medical staff, are in the best position to determine whether to end a child's life support.
Justice Ling-Cohan's Decision
Earlier this year the mother filed suit to prohibit the continued languishment of her child. The mother sought to have the Health and Hospitals Corporation's policy declared void.
At trial, several doctors testified that the child had no hope of recovering and that the mother was a caring, devoted and loving parent. In addition, the doctors and a guardian appointed for the child testified that the mother made a fully informed decision.
Then the mother testified. The record is sealed as to what she said.
In May in a strongly worded decision, Justice Ling- Cohan ruled that "[a]bsent extraordinary circumstances such as incapacity, conflict of interest, or disagreement between parents, a parent of a minor child with an established diagnosis of persistent vegetative state should have the right to decide whether to terminate life support in the best interest of the child, without the necessity of judicial intervention."
The decision, Justice Ling-Cohan concluded, "to end the dying process of a minor child is a personal decision for the parents, in consultation with the child's medical providers, as they bear the legal, moral and ethical responsibility for their child. . . . [There is no] State interest great enough to compel [the child] to remain subjected to this extraordinary life-sustaining measure."
Conclusion
While the image of a three-year-old child lying in a persistent vegetative state is horrendous, it is hard to imagine how much pain her mother suffered watching her own child in that state and then being forced to testify about it.
A bill now pending in the Senate, the Family Health Care Decisions Act, would rectify this by making judicial intervention unnecessary when numerous safeguards are met. It would be irresponsible, particularly in light of the existence of these laws in 48 other states, for the Senate not to move on this bill.
Matter of AB, Index No. 401184/03 (Ling-Cohan, J.) (N.Y.Cty.Sup.Ct.) May 20, 2003 (N.Y.Cty.Sup.Ct.) (Attorneys: Elisabeth Benjamin, Samuel Davol, for AB; Salvatore Russo, Stacey Mondschein, Kenneth R. Larywon, Michael Zhu, for HHC).