Last year, during the height of a raging global pandemic that nearly halted courthouse functions but not its influx of cases, court system officials turned away an extraordinary number of older judges who applied to stay on the bench past their retirement ages, citing budget concerns.
Denying that group of 46 judges, some of whom were sitting on New York’s midlevel appellate courts, the chance to continue serving the courts after they reached retirement age—called “recertification”—was met with considerable backlash.
