Advocates Urge Hochul to Choose a New Chief Judge Who Will Look Out for the Vulnerable

Gov. Kathy Hochul has until the start of the winter holidays to make her mark on New York’s highest court, the Court of Appeals, by choosing a new chief judge.

A coalition of criminal justice advocates want Hochul to pick someone who has a background in fighting for the state’s most vulnerable people.

Former Chief Judge Janet DiFiore resigned in August amid an ethics investigation. In New York, the governor picks from a list of candidates from a judicial nominating commission.

The seven names include the current acting chief judge, Anthony Cannataro, who if chosen, would be the first openly gay chief judge in New York’s history. Others on the list include Jeffrey Oing, a mid-level appeals court judge, who could become the first Asian-American to lead the court, and Alicia Ouellette, the dean of Albany Law School, who has a background in disability rights.

Hochul, speaking for the first time since she received the list of names on Thanksgiving eve, said she wants to appoint an “exceptional” person.

“I want someone who can do a number of things,” Hochul said. “We are looking for the caliber of individual that can be tapped for the Supreme Court someday.”

Hochul said she’s also looking for someone with administrative experience who can help revive a “vast and complicated” state court system and deal with backlogs after the courts were shuttered during the pandemic.

“That has a collateral impact on criminal justice,” said Hochul, who added the courts have “not worked the way they were supposed to” for the last two-and-a-half years.

The governor is not tipping her hand on who she favors, but 135 criminal justice and civil rights organizations are weighing in.

They say the court’s track record, under appointments by former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, leans conservative, with judges often siding with prosecutors or government and choosing to hear fewer cases that could have set precedents in defendants’ rights cases.

The group sent a letter to Hochul in August, when DiFiore first announced that she was leaving.

Peter Martin is with the Center for Community Alternatives, a group that works with communities disproportionately affected by incarceration.

“This court right now is really unacceptably biased in favor of the prosecution, the government,” Martin said. “And that needs to change.”

Martin said just three of the seven people on the list would help balance out the court. They include Corey Stoughton, a longtime civil rights attorney who has worked for the Legal Aid Society, Judge Edwina Richardson-Mendelson, a Judge on the Court of Claims, who oversaw anti discrimination policies under former Chief Judge DiFiore, who would be the first African-American woman to lead the court, and Abbe Gluck, a professor of law and medicine at Yale, who was part of President Joe Biden’s COVID response team.

The state Senate must confirm the governor’s choice. Martin said if Hochul picks someone they don’t believe would counterbalance the court, the groups plan to lobby progressive-leaning senators to vote against the governor’s pick.

“That’s our plan,” Martin said. “We certainly hope we don’t have to confront that.”

According to the rules, Hochul will announce her choice between Dec. 8 and Dec. 23.