[Editor's note: Joseph W. Bellacosa served the New York Court of Appeals from 1975 to 2000 as chief clerk, counsel, chief administrative judge and associate judge. The Law Journal proudly presents this latest edition in an occasional series in which the retired judge shares reflections from his long tenure in New York's judiciary.]

I had a front-row seat and ground-level assistance role as clerk for the unfolding of the three major constitutional court reform measures of 1977. The story and stimuli to action start earlier in that decade with the last three politically contested statewide elections for Court of Appeals seats.

  • 1972: Three new Judges elected in a Republican sweep—Domenick L. Gabrielli, Hugh R. Jones, and Sol Wachtler. The “run-the-table” coup came about because the Democrats gambled away a bipartisan deal for two sure seats for its nominees and only one for the opposition. The brash bet backfired, calling to mind the proverb of holding onto birds in the hand in lieu of chasing those in the bush.
  • 1973: Chief Judge Stanley Fuld retired and Associate Judge Charles Breitel got the Republican nomination for next chief judge. Jacob D. Fuchsberg, a successful negligence lawyer harboring judicial ambitions, secured the Democratic nomination and launched an expensive statewide contest. Breitel won, though as a sitting judge he had to campaign when the court was not in session in Albany. He privately vowed that the election system had to go.
  • 1974: Two more vacancies had to be filled in that election cycle. Fuchsberg emerged once again, this time to launch a Democratic Party primary against another sitting associate judge, Harold A. Stevens, who had been appointed to the Court of Appeals by Republican Gov. Malcolm Wilson to fill an interim vacancy. Stevens, a renowned jurist and historically the first Black judge to serve on the Court of Appeals, sought a permanent place on the court. Unfortunately, he lost the primary that ended his time at the high court. (He had previously served as a presiding justice of the Appellate Division, First Department and fortunately was able to return to that post.) The 1974 election brought Judge Lawrence H. Cooke and Fuchsberg to the last two elective seats at the Court of Appeals.
  • 1975: Imagine the chief judge sitting across the conference table every working day looking directly at the newest associate judge, his former rival for the center chair. I started as clerk in January 1975, so I actually witnessed this tension-fraught scene firsthand, seated behind the chief judge.