The Interdependent Third Branch
Tracking court organization, administration, structure, and strategy
I reported earlier on a group of judicial candidates in Brooklyn who are running outside–really against–the city’s Democratic machine politics. The candidates are all Democrats, to be sure, but they are seeking office without the blessing of the Democratic establishment.
The Brooklyn Daily Eagle now has more extended profiles on some of the candidates, including their vocal leader, John O’Hara. Should be an interesting, and possibly ugly, campaign.
In light of several recent kerfuffles involving Manhattan judge Joan Kenney, the New York Post has run a lengthy piece explaining the deep flaws in the de facto Democratic Party control over the selection of New York City judges. The piece’s criticisms are spot on, and would be regardless of which party held control.
The standard disclaimer applies: a lousy selection system can still produce some excellent judges. And there are doubtless many excellent judges in the New York State system. But why New Yorkers would prefer a system that greatly increases the likelihood of unqualified, politically connected judges is beyond me.
John O’Hara’s 1997 voter fraud conviction–for allegedly casting a ballot in the wrong district–was overturned just a few months ago. O’Hara is now seeking to take on Brooklyn’s Democratic machine:
O’Hara’s slate for the Democratic primary in September includes himself and five other candidates, as part of what he is calling a “rage against the machine” to challenge the Brooklyn Democratic Party’s status quo of choosing who gets the gavel.
The party’s Judicial Screening Committee nominates a candidate through the screening process and then backs them — but the process is far from independent, and O’Hara’s slate of six is looking to take on the machine, he said.
“Because the whole so-called independent judicial screening panel is not very independent. We have nothing to do with that,” he said. “Machine-backed candidates, those are the people we are running against. We are all independent candidates.”
Those who are truly concerned about money and politics* might take notice of this past weekend’s fundraiser for Jacob Gold, “the dean of Democratic District Leaders,” in Brooklyn. The fundraiser brought out “a small army of attorneys,” all of whom hoped to wow the party bosses and win one of a handful endorsements for the bench in the coming election.
I have previously noted the rather nauseating control that party bosses maintain over the selection of New York’s trial judges. Events like this offer little solace for the prospect of an impartial and independent judiciary. New Yorkers deserve much better.
* As opposed to those who simply and mindlessly rant about Citizens United.
According to this story, a special counsel for Mayor Bill de Blasio has noted the difficulty of finding qualified applicants to fill interim posts on the New York City Civil Court. It’s not hard to see why. Candidates are guaranteed only one year on the bench, after which they must stand for election to keep their positions. But in New York’s byzantine judicial election system, which is largely run by party bosses and was once flatly characterized by Justice Stevens as “stupid,” excellent service on the bench for a year is no guarantee of future employment.
Consider the problem from the perspective of potential applicants. To move to the bench, those in private practice would have to give up their clients, essentially depleting years or decades of work in developing a book of business. It would be professionally negligent, if not career suicide, to allow all your clients to move on in return for a one-year gig on the bench. Potential applicants in the District Attorney’s office or Public Defender’s office might be able to extract themselves a bit more easily, but face similar risks in moving themselves back and forth from the bench. As a result, the pool of potential applicants is likely to contain near-retirees or lawyers without much business than it is high-quality attorneys in their prime.
New York, like other states, could resolve the problem by moving away from judicial elections altogether. Appointed judges would have more confidence in their ability to stay on the bench for a while, given good behavior.
This is an interesting piece on recent administrative changes made at the Criminal Term of the Brooklyn Supreme Court to combat backlog and process cases more efficiently. Efficiency in case processing is often overemphasized, and can be stressed to the detriment of other important factors of court productivity. But it is still a very visible part of court operations, and accordingly very important. Courts should be applauded for seeking out internal ways to handle their duties efficiently.
The Interdependent Third Branch 