William Miller, the former supervising judge of the New York City criminal court in Brooklyn for more than a quarter century—leading the integral court through a time of innovation, including the implementation of drug treatment courts and an oft-emulated program that allows lower-level offenders to get jail-sentence alternatives—has died.

He passed away in the hospital in the early morning hours of Sunday, said his wife of 32 years, Teresa Fabi, a former longtime assistant district attorney in the Brooklyn District Attorney’s Office. The cause of death was cancer. He was 76.