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NY Times on Judges - What They Left OutSunday’s NY Times lead editorial in its City & Regional sections was about reforming New York’s courts In the editorial the Times criticized former Governor Pataki – The urgency of this task is attributable in no small measure to indifference by Mr. Spitzer’s predecessor, George Pataki. Although he periodically gave lip service to making improvements in the courts, occasionally following through, Mr. Pataki generally shied from expending the necessary energy or political capital to persuade the State Legislature to go along. To the extent Mr. Pataki led in this sphere, it was mostly by bad example. His misuse of the governor’s judicial appointment power to play politics — even to the extent of packing Manhattan’s appellate court with upstate Republicans — has left a legacy of mediocrity and cronyism. And as a solution one of the proposals supported by the Times is merit selection of judges. However, the Times and other reformers who favor merit selection over democratic elections seem to be ignoring the fact that those “mediocre cronies that Pataki packed Manhattan’s appellate court with” were, in part, a product of merit selection. In 1975, former Governor Hugh Carey created a system where judicial screening committees nominate candidates for appointment to judicial offices, including elected Supreme Court justices for designation as justices of the appellate division of the Supreme Court. Former Governors Cuomo and Pataki have continued this system. So the judges Pataki has picked to sit in Manhattan's courts have been approved by "independent" panels. So we once again get to the point I have been making in the past - no system in practice has shown that it doesn’t prevent our getting bad judges. Having Pataki appoint judges on the books isn't much different than having Clarence Norman appoint judges off the books. They have the same ideological, financial, and favor-swapping motivations.
But I still don't think open elections are necessarily the answer, because most voters, including myself, are not in a position to judge who would be a good judge. You might get ideologues or deal makers in that case as well.
How about having the Court of Appeals and its designees appoint, and have the authority to remove, lower level judges as I have suggested? i believe it is the great misunderstandind of the prinsiples of justice and democracy in general to appoint judges or any other high responsibility officials based upon racial ratio. i think they should be selected strictly by talents, skills and background in which no even subtle simptoms of corruption shall be found.
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Jerry: It is important to remember on this MLK Day 2007 not only the horrendous Pataki judicial appointment record, but the entire record of appointments by the NYC Mayor and OCA (Office of Court Administration) , which has appointment power over NYC Housing Court judges and Acting Supreme Court judges;
The record of judicial appointments (sometimes misnomered "merit selection") regarding diversity in NY State is abysmal.
Reformers and the Times always run from this stark reality- when given the opportunity to appoint qualified minority judges, neither the Governor, Mayor nor OCA (Chief Judge) have ever delivered.
It is only through judicial elections that significant numbers of qualified minority judges have ascended to the bench, in proportions approaching voting population percentages, particularly in Manhattan, Brooklyn and the Bronx.
It is important to note that while Pataki was packing the Court of Claims and appellate divisions with mediocre upstate judges, he was also carefully refraining from appointing minority judges. In 12 years, with the Court of Appeals, 4 Appellate Divisions and the Court of Claims (i.e., nearly one hundred appointments) Pataki managed to appoint only 2 blacks (Townes, Waldon), 5 Hispanics (Gonzales, Rivera, Carro, Irizarry, Soto) and no Asians.
Until 2005, when he was running for re-election, Bloomberg had never appointed an Asian to the Criminal or Family courts.
Out of 114 Acting Supreme Court judges (lower court judges sitting by designation) in NYC, only 13 blacks, asians or latinos were appointed by OCA as of 2006. These are sorry facts which the Times will never own up to!