ALBANY – Defusing a potential crisis that raised doubts about the validity of hundreds of thousands of misdemeanor convictions in the Bronx, the state Court of Appeals ruled unanimously yesterday that court administrators have wide latitude to assign cases to Supreme Court justices to promote the “efficient administration of justice.”
In a single 6-0 opinion that decided three cases—People v. Correa, 115, People v. Fernandez, 120, and People v. Mack, 137—the Court gave its seal of approval to two administrative experiments that have state Supreme Court justices presiding over misdemeanor cases as well as felonies: a merged criminal court in the Bronx and an Integrated Domestic Violence (IDV) court in Brooklyn.
