ALBANY – State Senate Democrats moved one step closer Monday to solidifying liberal dominance over New York’s top court after approving the nomination of Court of Appeals Associate Judge Rowan Wilson for the chief judge spot ahead of a floor vote expected Tuesday.
Thirteen Democrats on the 19-member committee voted to recommend Wilson to the full Senate, with four Republicans voting against. Another GOP member voted to move Wilson’s nomination without recommending it. State Sen. Thomas O’Mara (R-Elmira) was absent.
Wilson’s near-certain confirmation could make a big difference in upcoming decisions by the high court, including a pending case backed by Gov. Hochul that could determine which party wins the House of Representatives in next year’s elections.
Wilson was among the liberal judges who voted last year to uphold the so-called “Hochulmander” that ultimately got tossed by the conservative majority on the Court of Appeals.
However, when Republicans pressed Wilson — who would be the first black chief judge if confirmed — over whether he might support tossing the lines if he gets confirmed and the court once again weighs in on the congressional map, he pleaded ignorance, telling the committee: “I don’t know anything about that case.”
Wilson was also forced to defend his record on other touchy topics — like the majority opinion he wrote last month that voided the rape conviction sending an upstate man to prison for twelve years before a legal challenge to the DNA evidence set him free with Wilson’s help.
“It shocks the conscience,” Sonia Ossorio, president of NOW New York, recently said. “There is now an opening for convicted rapists to appeal convictions on the basis that they were not indicted soon enough, or that they were under suspicion too long. I believe to most New Yorkers this decision disqualifies Judge Wilson to have the most powerful position in the court system.”
Wilson told senators on Monday that the outraged victim in the case “got some measure of closure” while arguing that collateral damage was necessary in order to protect all New Yorkers’ legal rights.
“It’s a horrible feeling to have to reverse a conviction in that circumstance,” he said. “It’s not an easy thing to do, but it’s a function of how our judicial system works.”
The judge likewise tried to explain his dissent in a case last year about whether Happy, an elephant at the Bronx Zoo, could sue for its freedom by invoking habeas corpus — the right against indefinite detention reserved for people.
“We should recognize Happy’s right to petition for her liberty not just because she is a wild animal who is not meant to be caged and displayed,” Wilson wrote at the time, “but because the rights we confer on others define who we are as a society.”
“An elephant is not a person,” acknowledged Wilson, explaining that he knew all along habeas corpus does not apply to pachyderms.
Approval by the full Senate would open the way for attorney Caitlin Halligan, a former state solicitor general, to replace him on the Court of Appeals as an associate judge after Albany Democrats approved a new state law allowing Hochul to make two judicial picks from a list of seven names screened by the Commission on Judicial Nomination.
Republicans are considering a lawsuit to challenge any bid to confirm a second judge without the commission screening another round of candidates.
Halligan is expected to get approved by the committee, but a floor vote will not happen until Wednesday at the earliest.
“If there is any litigation, it’s probably from someone here,” Judiciary Chair Brad Hoylman-Sigal (D-Manhattan) quipped at one point in the hearing, referring to state Sen. Anthony Palumbo (R-Suffolk).
A female protester briefly interrupted the proceedings by demanding to testify against Wilson, who she alleged was corrupt for unspecified reasons.
“We do have her testimony, as it were,” Hoylman-Sigal said.
But Wilson is nonetheless facing a relatively smooth path to confirmation compared to the centrist Brooklyn appellate judge Hector LaSalle, who faced incessant attacks from the political left and organized labor after Hochul announced his nomination in December.
LaSalle would have been the first Latino to lead the court, a sore spot for supporters who have lamented a lack of representation at the top echelons of power in Albany.
State Senate Democrats ultimately blocked his confirmation in a February hearing after weeks of acrimony between Hochul and liberal legislators who made her the first governor to ever have a judicial pick rejected by the upper chamber.
Wilson said Monday that the fight over LaSalle was “deleterious to the very thing that I think we should all do.”
“We really need to move forward here,” the judge added.