Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz recently took to the pages of this publication to opine on the selection process for the next Chief Judge of the New York State Court of Appeals. Her argument was both circuitous and took veiled aim at a basic constitutional principle: the advice and consent of the Senate over appointments to the Court of Appeals.
The arguments in Katz’s piece are inherently contradictory. She writes that “the court’s decision making process surely benefits when its judges have a wide range of legal experiences,” and that the judges’ ability to “fully appreciate the legal and practical implications of their rulings” are enhanced, not diminished, by having judges with a variety of backgrounds.
