Special Commission on the Future of the New York State Courts

We recognize that some have expressed the concern that this term
might be confused with the District Courts on Long Island and
might connote an expansion of those courts or some alteration to
the Town and Village Justice Courts. Whatever its name, we
wish to make absolutely clear that the lower court we have
proposed is not an expansion of the Long Island District Courts
(to the contrary, our plan abolishes those courts and merges them
into our proposed lower court), and, as explained later in this
section, our plan makes no changes to the current system of Town
and Village Justice Courts.
The Appellate Division
“[I]f we are serious about continuing
to provide access to
justice, the most professional
of services to the community
we serve, while administering
justice in a timely fashion, the
New York State Supreme Court
Fifth Judicial Department
needs to become a reality.”
– Presiding Justice of the
Appellate Division,
Second Department,
A. Gail Prudenti,
January 2007
As described in Section One, there is near unanimous
consensus that the Appellate Division, which has not been
adjusted since 1894, is outdated and unbalanced. The Second
Department today includes approximately one-half of the state’s
population and bears a caseload that is much greater than the
other three departments.
For this reason, we propose the addition of a Fifth
Department to the Appellate Division so that the burden of our
state’s appellate caseload can be shared more evenly and
efficiently. 147 In addition, given that it has taken more than a
century to adopt any changes to the Appellate Division system,
we believe the Legislature should be permitted to approve future
changes to the system without the need for a constitutional
amendment so that adjustments can be made more easily.
In addition to long overdue improvements to the
Appellate Division’s efficiency, our restructuring proposal offers
other benefits as well. Most importantly, the pool of Supreme
Court Justices would be significantly expanded by the
consolidation of New York’s major trial courts into a new
Supreme Court. Under our plan, all of these new Supreme Court
Justices would be eligible for appointment to the Appellate
147
We leave it to the Legislature to decide if it is more practicable to
make changes to the system by adding a Sixth Department as well. We do not oppose
the addition of a Sixth Department (or additional departments) so long as the
end result is an even, efficient division of cases among the Appellate Division departments.
72
A Court System for the Future, February 2007