State's way of choosing judges on trial

New York State's method of choosing Supreme Court judges is unconstitutional and needs to be replaced within 90 days, a pending lawsuit by the NYU School of Law's Brennan Center for Justice charges.

The 36-page complaint, filed March 18 in a U.S. District Court in Brooklyn, claims the state's judge-selection process, in which voters choose delegates in primary elections who ultimately determine judicial nominees for the general election, violates the First and 14th amendments of the U.S. Constitution.

'The current selection system robs voters of their constitutional right to choose their Supreme Court justices, and destroys their faith in the judiciary,' said Jeremy Creelan, the plaintiff's attorney and associate counsel at the Brennan Center.

The lawsuit calls for direct primary elections for Supreme Court judges and for candidates to petition onto a primary ballot with a 'reasonable' amount of signatures, according to a statement issued by the Brennan Center.

In the current system, the delegates chosen in September attend a judicial nominating convention two weeks after their election to determine candidates for the November general election.

'Ostensibly, it's an election, but most of the time... [delegates to the judicial convention] don't even appear on the ballot in September because they're not opposed by anyone,' Creelan said. 'They're basically handpicked by party leaders.'

New York is the only state with such a convention system, Creelan said.

'It's the convention that actually determines who is the Supreme Court justice, and voters rarely get enough input into that,' he said.

Some politicians disagreed with Creelan's complaint.

'If the process is tainted, so are the other convention processes,' said one member of Brooklyn's Democratic Party who asked to remain anonymous, citing the elections for governor, attorney general and state comptroller. 'There's no law that gives any candidate the right to be that party's nominee. All you're entitled to is a certain degree of fairness.'

Selection of nominees by political parties ensures that New York state's main trial court is composed of well-qualified people, he said.

'People don't have the best idea of what's going on politically,' he said. 'The only time you'll ever read about an assemblyman is if he's been arrested or dead. Party labels are great at conveying certain amorphous qualities about candidates.'

Creelan said the Brennan Center may move for a preliminary injunction next month, and he anticipates a trial later this year. The Brooklyn source said the case will come to trial in 2006.