Special Commission on the Future of the New York State Courts

are selected through different methods and for different terms.
A “merger in place” plan allows the much-needed goal of court
restructuring to be achieved without having to wait for the more
controversial judicial selection issue to be resolved.
The Methods of Selection. As noted, we realize that
“merger in place” leads to some anomalous results. The newly
expanded Supreme Court will have some judges who are elected
(e.g., former Family Court judges from outside New York City,
former Surrogate’s Court judges) and some judges who are
appointed (e.g., former Court of Claims judges, former New York
City Family Court judges). The judges will also differ in their
terms of office: some will sit for fourteen-year terms (preexisting
Supreme Court Justice seats), some for ten-year terms (former
County Court judges), and some for nine-year terms (former
Court of Claims judges). Likewise, the new District Court will
have a consolidation of elected and appointed judges with
varying terms of office.
While this result is clearly an amalgam, it is no more so
than the arrangement that now exists. 153 We believe that what we
are proposing provides an infinitely better structure for the courts,
whether or not a decision is made to change the manner of
selection, for the multiplicity of judges who operate within our
system today.
Electoral Lines. “Merger in place” leads to similar
incongruities with regard to the geographic area in which some
of the judges of the new Supreme Court would run for office.
Under our plan, judges who occupied their offices as JSCs prior
to restructuring would continue to run for office across an entire
153
Indeed, we observe that our plan is more coherent than the present
system – which, to the public, presents the Supreme Court as an elective bench and
Supreme Court Justices as serving fourteen-year terms. Of course, the reality is
that half of the Justices of the Supreme Court in New York City are really judges
of other courts – as a consequence of which, they serve for less than fourteen-year
terms, and a sizeable number of them are not even elected, having been appointed
to office either by the Governor or by the New York City Mayor. Moreover, all
of these Acting JSCs arrive at Supreme Court by means of an administrative assignment
by the Chief Administrative Judge – an administrative officer not accountable
to the electorate. Under any fair view of the matter, “merger-in-place,”
which by creating both appointive and elective justices does away with Acting
JSCs and court administration’s role in deciding who serves on Supreme Court, is
a significant improvement over the current system, regardless of how the question
of judicial selection is ultimately addressed.
A Court System for the Future, February 2007 77