Memo to Paterson: Give us a Leader
Simple Justice:
The New York Sun surveys the candidates who have expressed an interest in taking Judy Kaye’s job as Chief Judge of the New York Court of Appeals. At present, there are two leading contenders, Jonathon Lippman and Carmen Beauchamp Ciparick. Lippman is the former administrative judge for the system, now presiding justice of the Appellate Division, First Department. Ciparick is an associate judge of the Court of Appeals.
Much as I hate to delve into ancient history, I will. New York once had a stand-out Court of Appeals under Rockefeller Republican Chief Judge, Sol Wachtler. It was a leader in thought, and neither bent nor broke under pressure. Then that ninny went off the deep-end in 1992 and blew it. Rarely has one man’s personal collapse caused as much trouble for so many.
Since then, the New York Court of Appeals has floundered, both intellectually and ideologically. It has become a follower court, going with the prevailing trends rather than creating the trends that others will follow. The time when the New York Court of Appeals told the United States Supreme Court that it would follow it’s own darn Constitution, which provided stronger protections than those wobbly-kneed, wishy-washy Washingtonian dandies, was over. It would fall in line, like a good little court.
So what’s Paterson’s plan?
“I can only guess that he wants to put a very bright liberal in the center seat of the court,” an Albany Law School professor who is a close watcher of the Court of Appeals, Vincent Bonventre, said.
Unfortunately, there’s absolutely no basis for this “guess”, and one has to wonder what is meant by “very bright liberal” these days.
This quasi-appointment has the potential to be a watershed event, particularly given the potential that the next president could wreak havoc according to who gets the next…