ALBANY – Gov. Hochul took a left turn Monday by naming liberal Court of Appeals Associate Judge Rowan Wilson to lead New York’s highest court after her initial choice of centrist Hector LaSalle went down in flames this past February.
“Judge Wilson’s sterling record of upholding justice and fairness makes him well-suited to lead the court at this critical time,” the governor said in a statement announcing the nomination.
Wilson, 62, would be the first black chief judge if confirmed and is expected to face a much smoother path than Brooklyn appellate judge LaSalle, who ran afoul of progressives in the state Senate due to his record.
The Democratic supermajority in Albany’s upper chamber will have 30 days to consider Wilson’s nomination.
“It appears that the governor is bowing to the most radical element of the far let in picking this activist judge for the chief position,” said state Sen. George Borello (R-Jamestown).
On the other side of the aisle Deputy Senate Majority Leader Michael Gianaris (D-Queens), who helped lead opposition to LaSalle earlier this year, said Monday that he was “particularly excited” about Hochul’s pick of Wilson following the bitter battle over LaSalle.
“[Wilson] is exactly the type of person who can restore the integrity and reputation of the Court of Appeals after the damaging tenure of the previous administration,” Gianaris said.
Progressives are pushing for the court to move leftwards after years of domination by a conservative bloc led by ex-Chief Judge Janet DiFiore, who resigned under a cloud of scandal last summer.
Wilson has been called a “stalwart” of the court’s left-leaning bloc that notably voted to uphold the so-called “Hochulmander” of the state congressional map, which was thrown out by the conservative judges, setting the stage for Republicans to flip control of the US House with the help of more evenly balanced districts in New York.
A native of Berkeley, Calif. who graduated from Harvard Law School, Wilson was also one of two holdouts in a 2022 case where the majority found a Bronx Zoo elephant named Happy was not a “person” with the right to sue for her release.
“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, but because the rights we confer on others define who we are as a society,” Wilson wrote at the time.
His record on the court since being appointed in 2017 by then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo likewise points to a reading of the law sympathetic to criminal defendants, including a 2021 decision where he was the lone vote for tossing the conviction of an Erie County woman convicted of assaulting her 71-year-old father.
While Wilson is known for his liberal interpretations of the law, he has also cultivated a reputation as a congenial colleague and brilliant legal mind.
“If you put him on the Supreme Court, he probably doubles the IQ, I mean, that guy is just phenomenal,” Albany Law School Professor Vincent Bonventre, an expert on the Court of Appeals, told The Post last month when Wilson’ name was included on a list of seven candidates for chief judge screened by a state panel.
“But he’s also very ideologically liberal – whether that makes him a good judge or a bad judge is another thing – but he’s very ideologically liberal,” Bonventre added.
In addition to naming Wilson to the chief judge post, Hochul also nominated Caitlin Halligan — a lawyer who previously served as state solicitor general — to the Court of Appeals to fill his seat.
“She’s one of the great lawyers in the country,” Bonventre said. “She tends to be, you know, more liberal and I’m pretty sure the senators would love to see her chosen as well.”
Legislation recently passed by the state Senate and Assembly would allow Hochul to name Halligan to the high court without requiring the state Commission on Judicial Nominations to open another round of applications.
State lawmakers have yet to send the bill to Hochul’s desk amid a standoff over the state budget, which Hochul has held up in hopes of winning the state Senate and Assembly over to the idea of overhauling controversial bail laws amid rising crime.
Two picks appealing to the left wing of the Democratic Party could quiet criticism from the political left, but moving to solidify a liberal majority on the state’s highest court is already causing criticism from Republican legislators who backed Hochul while she was fighting for LaSalle and his strict approach to interpreting the law.
“She may be doing this in order to curry a little favor in the budget process,” Borello warned. “But in the end, she might win the battle but lose the war.”
“We will end up with an extreme Court of Appeals,” he added, ” … a court that will try to legislate from the bench and advance the far left agenda.”