ALBANY – The diverse list of contenders for the Court of Appeals released last week, and the general assumption that the open position is a "black seat," has caused some members of the bar to question whether race is a legitimate, or even constitutional, consideration in reviewing candidates for the state’s court of last resort.
Governor Andrew Cuomo on March 7 received a list from the Commission on Judicial Nomination that included three black candidatesAppellate Division, First Department, Justices Sheila Abdus-Salaam and Dianne Renwick, and Rowan Wilson, a litigation partner at Cravath, Swaine & Moore. It is widely assumed the governor will pick a black candidate to replace Judge Theodore Jones Jr., who was the only black judge on the court when he died in November.
