New York Law Journal Op-ed: Yes, Justice Hector LaSalle Really Is Conservative

[Celerity]

https://www.law.com/newyorklawjournal/2023/01/13/yes-justice-hector-lasalle-really-is-conservative/

https://archive.ph/mjTEh

When Gov. Kathy Hochul nominated Appellate Division, Second Department Presiding Justice Hector LaSalle to be the next chief judge of New York’s courts, 149 organizations sounded the alarm that LaSalle would ensure a continuation of previous Chief Judge Janet DiFiore’s 4-3 conservative majority. Forty-six law professors were alarmed by his opinions on reproductive rights, unions, and criminal justice. Fourteen state senators publicly declared that they would oppose LaSalle’s nomination, casting his confirmation into question.

Since then, there has been a steady hum of op-eds and letters here in the Law Journal raising the possibility that perhaps LaSalle is not quite so bad. Perhaps all these voices were hasty—in fact, if you look closely at LaSalle’s record, does it really show such conservative tendencies? The answer is yes.

Despite the outcry that progressive groups “cherry-picked” cases, the coalition opposing LaSalle has cited a large number of disturbing cases. A recent analysis of his votes in criminal cases puts LaSalle in the most conservative 25% of Second Department justices. Another recent news analysis showed that he sided with the Court of Appeals’ conservative bloc in eight of his previous nine decisions.

In all his thousands of criminal cases, he has never once dissented on behalf of a criminal defendant. In a telling case, DiFiore personally vouched LaSalle onto the court so that he could break a tie in favor of that conservative majority. White v. Cuomo, 2022 NY Slip Op 01954; see also U.S. Bank N.A. v. DLJ Mtge. Capital, 2022 NY Slip Op 01866 (where DiFiore vouched in LaSalle, who voted with the conservative majority, but where his vote was not necessary to break a tie).

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The New York Law Journal, founded in 1888, is a legal periodical covering the legal profession in New York.

[Karadeniz]

1. Why would she nominate him?????

[Celerity]

2. Cuomo was even worse in terms of stuffing the bench with conservatives, so I guess he rubbed off

Link to tweet

A year ago, Democrats were wise to the possibility that the midterms might get ugly, but they had high hopes for New York. Red states across the country were redrawing voting districts to a new extreme, shoring up congressional advantages for their party. New York, it seemed, could do the same for Democrats—make the state even bluer, a competitive rejoinder to a redistricting cycle that seemed certain to play to Republicans’ advantage. The year 2021 marked the first time in a century that the New York Democrats had total control of state government, giving them unimpeded power in redistricting. Party leaders “optimistically predicted that new district lines could safeguard Democrats and imperil as many as five Republican seats,” noted the New York Times. Rumors circulated that Dems could lock in as much as a 23 to 3 advantage.

Today, all of that seems like a far-off fantasy. A startling nine of New York’s 26 congressional seats are currently in play for the GOP (my add: THEY WON 11!); party leaders are flocking to the state to help campaign for Democrats holding on by a thread. Jill Biden announced Thursday that she would campaign for one such Democrat, Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney, who opted to run in an easier, bluer district and was put in charge of House Democrats’ entire national reelection apparatus, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. He’s now on the ropes. What the hell happened here? And who’s to blame? Luckily, there’s an easy answer for the last question: Look no further than erstwhile Democratic governor Andrew Cuomo.

If Cuomo is known for anything beyond his miscreant behavior in office, it should be for his willingness to abet the state’s conservative forces for his personal gain, often to his own party’s disadvantage. Nowhere was this more obvious than his judicial appointments, where Cuomo routinely elevated conservative appointees—gleefully scoring points against his progressive opponents in Albany and New York City by moving the judicial branch rapidly to the right. In particular, he appointed four conservative-leaning judges to 14-year terms on the Court of Appeals, the state’s highest judicial body. They are the former Republican Janet DiFiore, Republican Michael Garcia, and conservative Democrats Anthony Cannatarro and Madeline Singas. Forming a majority of the court’s seven members, these four emerged as a bloc in the most recent session, voting together in 96 of 98 cases during the term that ended in mid 2022.

And they made some pretty suspect decisions! As the reporter Sam Mellins wrote in City and State, “these four judges have used their power to prevent criminal defendants from presenting expert testimony supporting their innocence, bar workers from suing employers for workplace injuries, and make it harder for victims of police misconduct to sue for damages, among other rulings.” But their coup de grace was the ruling on New York state’s proposed redistricting. In April of this year, they sided with Republicans in a shock 4-3 decision that threw out the state’s redrawn maps, written by the Democratic-supermajority legislature, saying that they violated the state’s constitution. The opinion was written by Chief Judge DiFiore, with, of course, Judges Garcia, Singas, and Cannataro concurring.

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