NY appellate judge nominees picked by insiders

ALBANY, NY — If a criminal is arrested in Monticello for, say, burglary, his or her case will likely go before a Sullivan County Supreme Court judge. If the criminal is convicted and decides to appeal the sentence, the case will go to the State of New York Supreme Court, Appellate Division, Third Judicial Department, which will hear the appeal.

The Third District is made up of Albany, Rensselaer, Ulster, Columbia, Schoharie, Sullivan and Greene counties, and there are 18 judges in the district. Four judicial candidates are running for three seats this fall. Two of the candidates—John C Egan Jr. and Michael Lynch—are both running on four lines, including Republican and Democratic. The other two candidates—Justin Corcoran and Linda Blom Johnson—are running on two lines each, with Blom Johnson getting the Republican nod and Corcoran the Democratic. The odds are heavily tilted in favor of Egan and Lynch winning; the real race is only between Blom Johnson and Corcoran.

Cheryl Roberts was also vying for the Democratic nomination, but backed out of the race in August because, according to published reports, Roberts concluded she did not have sufficient votes to win. The votes, however, would not have been from primary voters, like every other primary contest in the state; judges for the appellate court are instead chosen by special delegates whose only responsibility is to choose their party’s candidate. In the case of the third judicial department, there were 73 delegates, who attended a “convention,” to choose the candidate.

The Brennan Center for Justice in 2015 said the process is woefully lacking.

“In reality, the system entrusts the selection of judges neither to the voting public nor to elected officials. Instead, unaccountable political party leaders control every step of the process,” says the center.

“First, most delegates are handpicked by their county’s party officials and do not even appear on the ballot because they almost always run unopposed… This means that voters often have no chance to pick who represents them at the conventions.

“Second, the nominating conventions are strictly for show. The party leaders decide on their preferred judicial candidates in advance and direct the delegates accordingly; other candidates have no realistic shot at nomination. The delegates—usually party loyalists, their family members, or members of their campaign staffs—receive no information about the judicial candidates in advance of the convention, and are often given no time to debate each candidate’s qualifications, according to a New York Times investigation. In more than 96 percent of nominations, no alternate candidates are put forward by the delegates and ‘conventions’ last as little as 20 minutes.”

So, while there are four candidates vying for judicial jobs that run 14 years and pay more than $200,000 per year, regular voters are aced out of the primary process, and established justices have the inside track.