BREAKING NEWS
New York Governor Eliot Spitzer today nominated Brooklyn civil term administrative Justice Theodore T. Jones Jr. for the Court of Appeals (see article here from New York Law Journal). In a "virtually unprecedented move," Governor Spitzer interviewed all seven candidates and met face-to-face with four of the candidates.
Justice Jones, 62, was born in Brooklyn and grew up in Queens. His mother was a teacher and his father worked with the Long Island Rail Road, eventually becoming station master at Penn Station. He saw active duty in Vietnam from 1967-1969 and left the military as a captain.
A graduate of Hampton University and St. John's University School of Law (1972), Justice Jones spent two years with the criminal division of the Legal Aid Society. He then clerked for a Court of Claims judge and practiced law in Brooklyn before his election to Supreme Court in 1989. Justice Jones was a member of the Second Department's character and fitness committee from 1978 to 1990 and has taught as an adjunct professor at the City University of New York and St. John's University School of Law.
Justice Jones, like the governor, is a Democrat. If confirmed by the Senate, he will join a bench that now includes two appointees of the last Democratic governor, Mario M. Cuomo (Chief Judge Judith S. Kaye and Judge Carmen Beauchamp Ciparick) and four Republicans appointed by Mr. Pataki (Judges Victoria A. Graffeo, Susan Phillips Read, Robert S. Smith and Eugene F. Pigott Jr.). Because of his age, Justice Jones would have only eight years, not a full 14-year term, on the Court before facing mandatory retirement at age 70.
Justice Jones would become the fourth black judge to sit on the Court of Appeals. The others were Judges Bundy Smith (1992-2006), Fritz W. Alexander II (1985-1992) and Harold A. Stevens (1974). The Senate is required to take action within 30 days. It has never rejected any governor's nomination for a Court of Appeals position. Mr. Spitzer said he had advised Senate Majority Leader Joseph L. Bruno of his choice, and that the majority leader responded favorably.
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