Justice Helen Hoens will likely be remembered as the greatest individual victim of the rift between Gov. Chris Christie and the Legislature over the composition of the New Jersey Supreme Court.
Denied tenure—to spare her from the savagery of a contested reappointment, Christie said—the 59-year-old jurist with almost 20 years on the bench stepped down on Oct. 25, less than a year before she would have been entitled to a full judicial pension. That cost her almost half of a nearly $140,000 pension and lopped 11 years off her judicial career, assuming she would have stayed until mandatory retirement at age 70.
