ALBANY - The system used to pick the state's Supreme Court judges is in “need of substantial improvement” and needs to be replaced this year, Chief Judge Judith Kaye, citing a recent federal court decision, said Monday.
In January, U.S. District Judge John Gleeson ruled the state's system for selecting Supreme Court judges gives too much power to political party bosses, and ordered it be replaced.
Ruling in a case brought by a watchdog group, Gleeson said New York's unique practice of using political conventions, rather than primaries, to decide the Democratic and Republican nominees for judgeships deprives voters of a role in picking who makes the ballot.
“It is no understatement that public confidence in the judicial branch is at stake,” Kaye said in her annual State of the Judiciary address.
Gleeson issued a preliminary injunction enjoining the state's Board of Elections from enforcing the existing system, and instructed the state to hold traditional primary elections to pick Supreme Court candidates until the Legislature enacts a replacement scheme. The Supreme Court is the highest level trial court in New York.
“We need to sit down and figure this out in 2006,” Kaye said.
Kaye said she was backing many of the recommendations made in a report released Monday by the Commission to Promote Public Confidence in Judicial Elections. Suggestions ranged from limiting the number of delegates at the convention to allowing judicial candidates to speak with delegates.
The commission, headed by John Feerick of the Fordham University School of Law, concluded however that primary elections for Supreme Court, without public financing, would “exacerbate the growing concern voters have about the role of campaign contributions in judicial decision making.”
Democratic Assemblywoman Helene Weinstein, chairwoman of the Assembly's Judicial Committee, said she expects the Feerick Commission's report to serve as a blueprint for reform.
“We'll see if there isn't a way to make the convention system more responsive to voters, more transparent,” she said.
State Sen. John DeFrancisco, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said he supports the primary process that Gleeson ordered. He said family, county and city court judges around the state have gone through primary elections “without evidence of corruption” for years.
Argument in the case before Gleeson centered on the selection of judges in Brooklyn, which had been tightly controlled for years by the head of the Brooklyn Democratic Party, Clarence Norman Jr. Norman was sentenced to two to six years in prison last month for separate convictions on campaign corruption charges.
Like last year, Kaye called on lawmakers to approve pay raises for the state's judges. The judiciary is proposing raising the annual salary for the state's main trial judges, Supreme Court justices, to $162,100, the same as paid to U.S. District Court judges, retroactive to April 1, 2005. State Supreme Court judges are currently paid $136,700 a year.
Supreme Court justices would have their pay boosted to $165,200 this April to coincide with a coming raise for U.S. District Court judges.
The judiciary's proposal would initially raise Kaye's annual pay to $185,000, up from $156,000. The annual salaries for the Court of Appeals' six associate judges would rise to $179,300 each, up from $151,200. In April, Kaye's salary would go up to $188,600 and the associate judges' salaries would rise to $182,800.
In a new wrinkle to the proposal, Kaye suggested that in 2007, judges, legislators and executive branch officials receive cost-of-living adjustments.
First, a commission would determine “catch-up” increases for executive and legislative branch officials then determine cost-of-living increases for all three government branches for the next four years. Lawmakers would be allowed to modify or stop the raises.
Judicial and legislative raises have traditionally occurred at the same time, but pay hikes for lawmakers is always one of the most politically sensitive and secretive issues dealt with by the Legislature. As a result, judges have gotten only two pay raises in the past 18 years.
DeFrancisco said Kaye's pay-hike proposal had a better chance of succeeding this year because it would make the question of raises less political.
Ruling in a case brought by a watchdog group, Gleeson said New York's unique practice of using political conventions, rather than primaries, to decide the Democratic and Republican nominees for judgeships deprives voters of a role in picking who makes the ballot.
“It is no understatement that public confidence in the judicial branch is at stake,” Kaye said in her annual State of the Judiciary address.
Gleeson issued a preliminary injunction enjoining the state's Board of Elections from enforcing the existing system, and instructed the state to hold traditional primary elections to pick Supreme Court candidates until the Legislature enacts a replacement scheme. The Supreme Court is the highest level trial court in New York.
“We need to sit down and figure this out in 2006,” Kaye said.
Kaye said she was backing many of the recommendations made in a report released Monday by the Commission to Promote Public Confidence in Judicial Elections. Suggestions ranged from limiting the number of delegates at the convention to allowing judicial candidates to speak with delegates.
The commission, headed by John Feerick of the Fordham University School of Law, concluded however that primary elections for Supreme Court, without public financing, would “exacerbate the growing concern voters have about the role of campaign contributions in judicial decision making.”
Democratic Assemblywoman Helene Weinstein, chairwoman of the Assembly's Judicial Committee, said she expects the Feerick Commission's report to serve as a blueprint for reform.
“We'll see if there isn't a way to make the convention system more responsive to voters, more transparent,” she said.
State Sen. John DeFrancisco, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said he supports the primary process that Gleeson ordered. He said family, county and city court judges around the state have gone through primary elections “without evidence of corruption” for years.
Argument in the case before Gleeson centered on the selection of judges in Brooklyn, which had been tightly controlled for years by the head of the Brooklyn Democratic Party, Clarence Norman Jr. Norman was sentenced to two to six years in prison last month for separate convictions on campaign corruption charges.
Like last year, Kaye called on lawmakers to approve pay raises for the state's judges. The judiciary is proposing raising the annual salary for the state's main trial judges, Supreme Court justices, to $162,100, the same as paid to U.S. District Court judges, retroactive to April 1, 2005. State Supreme Court judges are currently paid $136,700 a year.
Supreme Court justices would have their pay boosted to $165,200 this April to coincide with a coming raise for U.S. District Court judges.
The judiciary's proposal would initially raise Kaye's annual pay to $185,000, up from $156,000. The annual salaries for the Court of Appeals' six associate judges would rise to $179,300 each, up from $151,200. In April, Kaye's salary would go up to $188,600 and the associate judges' salaries would rise to $182,800.
In a new wrinkle to the proposal, Kaye suggested that in 2007, judges, legislators and executive branch officials receive cost-of-living adjustments.
First, a commission would determine “catch-up” increases for executive and legislative branch officials then determine cost-of-living increases for all three government branches for the next four years. Lawmakers would be allowed to modify or stop the raises.
Judicial and legislative raises have traditionally occurred at the same time, but pay hikes for lawmakers is always one of the most politically sensitive and secretive issues dealt with by the Legislature. As a result, judges have gotten only two pay raises in the past 18 years.
DeFrancisco said Kaye's pay-hike proposal had a better chance of succeeding this year because it would make the question of raises less political.
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