Lack of women on list to replace Kaye criticized
ALBANY — Rebuking a judicial screening process that failed to recommend any women as possible candidates to take over the state’s highest judicial post, Gov. David A. Paterson on Wednesday asked Attorney General Andrew Cuomo for legal help to determine if the list of candidates can be expanded.
“We’re outraged by what we see,” Paterson said of the list of names forwarded to him earlier this week that includes no women lawyers to replace retiring Chief Judge Judith Kaye on the State Court of Appeals.
“It seems highly unusual that in a class of seven individuals considered to be capable of supervising the Court of Appeals that not one of them would be a woman, not one. I think it’s very unfortunate,” the governor added.
The governor, though, stopped short of saying he would refuse to pick from the list, thereby leaving the court possibly without a chief judge and going directly against the selection process as mandated by the state constitution.
“I won’t disobey the rules of the constitution,” Paterson told reporters.
The governor’s complaint comes two days after the Commission on Judicial Nomination gave Paterson a list of seven names for him to select from to replace Kaye as chief judge of the state’s highest court.
In an unusual rebuke of the panel’s process, Paterson immediately condemned the list, saying it was not diverse enough. The seven candidates are all male, including six whites and one black.
Latino lawmakers, upset about a power vacuum for Hispanics in state government, are upset that Judge Carmen Beauchamp Ciparick, who has been on the Court of Appeals since 1993 and is the only Hispanic to serve on the high court, did not make the list of finalists for chief judge.
Two other members of the court did make the list: Judge Eugene F. Pigott Jr., a Grand Island resident, and Judge Theodore T. Jones Jr., the only black member of the court.
The commission was not budging, though. John O’Mara, the panel’s chairman, said it is “imperative that the commission maintain its independence” to ensure that nominees to the court “continue to be talented and intelligent individuals that reflect the best of New York’s esteemed legal community.”
It’s not the first time a governor has complained about choices given him by a screening panel for the high court. Cuomo’s father, former Gov. Mario Cuomo, shortly after taking office in 1983, complained bitterly that the then-screening panel’s list contained only men. Cuomo, in his governor’s race in 1982, had talked of his support for putting a woman on the Court of Appeals. After a series of public condemnations and after asking the panel to give him more names, which it rejected, Cuomo followed the constitution and chose from the original list.
“I agree with the governor that the list is flawed,” Andrew Cuomo said in an appearance with Paterson in Manhattan. “I think it’s clear the governor should not be in this position.”
Peter Kiernan, Paterson’s counsel, suggested the commission did not adequately screen enough qualified individuals and failed to provide Paterson with a detailed report on its work in narrowing the field to seven. He also questioned whether limiting the selection list to just seven is constitutional.
Likely knowing he will be choosing from the list, Paterson was cautious not to criticize the candidates, which include four judges and three lawyers in private practice. “None of the names are in any way less than highly qualified to serve as chief judge of the Court of Appeals,” Paterson said.
