UPDATE: The Judicial Convention happened, and as expected, the Judicial Delegates nominated all the party's selections for Supreme Court seats. Read on for details.

With all the political news this summer, you might have missed that our local party is choosing 10 judges who will likely serve on Civil Court and the NY Supreme Court for the next decade. Here’s our summary of what’s happening.

Nominations for three new Civil Court Judges

The NY legislature recently passed a law adding more judges to the Civil Court, including three seats in Brooklyn. Normally candidates run in a primary for these positions, but since the law took effect after the primary, the 42 District Leaders (DLs) of the Brooklyn Democratic Party were empowered to choose the nominees, who will almost certainly win these positions in the general election this November.

Given the accelerated selection timeline, District Leaders had limited time to learn about the judicial candidates. There were only a few days between the Judicial Screening Panel’s determinations as to whether candidates were qualified to run for the position and the vote by the District Leaders. To support that, DL Mark Hanna put together a questionnaire to better understand the candidates experience and approaches in a standardized format and DL Aaron Ouyang coordinated a centralized folder to collect the gathered resumes and responses to the questionnaires. This was then shared with other District Leaders in advance of the meeting. 

With the reform-aligned District Leaders continuing to pressure the Party to share more information about candidates and engage in greater efforts to be publicly transparent with Judicial selection, the Party rescheduled their original meeting to select nominees to allow additional time for the Party to schedule and hold a judicial forum. While the forum was not open to the public — only District Leaders and Candidates could join the virtual meeting — NKD appreciates this effort to share information about the candidates and provide an opportunity for District Leaders to meet ask engage with the candidates directly. 

Ultimately, the District Leaders met on Sunday, July 28, via zoom and cast votes weighted by the number of active Democratic voters in their district. When votes were tallied, Abayomi Ajaiyeoba Whint, Tawanna M. St. Louis, and Mark Kagan won nominations for the three seats.

Brooklyn Can’t Wait-endorsed District Leader Mark Hanna (64th Assembly District) shared his perspective about this year’s Civil Court nominees:

“The candidates demonstrate a varied set of backgrounds and experiences that I think will serve the Courts well. Mark Kagan, a long time Court Attorney with tremendous experience was unanimously voted for by all the present DLs. Tawanna St. Louis is a Court Attorney in a Matrimonial Part in the Supreme Court, and considering at least one of these new Civil Court seats is going to be in Family Court, I expect that someone with her background will be able to handle the delicate nature of such cases. Abayomi Ajaiyeoba (Yomi) Whint brings an extensive background in litigation - which I think is an unfortunately rare, but good, quality in a Judicial candidate since it usually comes with a sense of how the Courts will affect people and communities outside the Courthouse walls.

“I think we did well, and we've clearly made progress over the last few years - but of course we'll keep advancing our cause and make this process more open and more transparent and ideally ensure greater public buy-in.”

Party Chair Rodneyse Bichotte Hermelyn described the process and the candidates in this interview with Caribbean Life.

Forums and the Judicial Convention to pick state Supreme Court judges

New York has a strange and complex system for choosing nominees for state Supreme Court positions. Voters elect thousands of Judicial Delegates each year whose only responsibility is to attend one Judicial Convention in their county to vote on their party’s nominees for seats on the state Supreme Court. But the delegates will not actually choose the nominees — they only get to rubber-stamp the candidates that are already chosen by the party leaders. This system was found to be unconstitutional by a District Court and the U.S. Court of Appeals, but the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the system in 2008. In his concurring opinion, Justice John Paul Stevens wrote, “The Constitution does not prohibit legislatures from enacting stupid laws.” 

Brooklyn’s District Leaders met at Nick’s Lobster on Monday night, August 5, to choose the nominees who will be presented for approval at the Judicial Convention. This meeting is typically conducted in closed session, with no public record of what was discussed or how each leader voted. 

Then the Convention will take place on Thursday, August 8, in Mill Basin, and delegates will approve the nominees. This year there will be 6 new nominees and 1 nominee to be re-elected (re-elections is the same process as the new nominees).

Our local party did take a couple steps towards transparency this year. Reform-aligned District Leaders held a Supreme Court Forum on July 31, where Brooklynites had an opportunity to speak with candidates who are seeking the party’s nomination, and tell the hosts their opinions on the candidates via an online survey. Other District Leaders and the Shirley Chisholm Club hosted a separate forum on August 1 — we haven’t been able to find a recording of this forum. You can read resumés and campaign literature from the 7 Supreme Court candidates here.

If you’d like to learn more about what these Civil Court and Supreme Court judges do and how they’re chosen, check out our explainer from 2019.

Could there be a better process? What can we do about it?

NKD Policy Committee has spent over a year speaking with District Leaders, past members of the Judicial Screening Committee, Judicial Delegates, and organizations like Center for Community Alternatives, to gather feedback about gaps within the judicial nomination process.  From these conversations emerged a clear vision that a more democratic, transparent, and inclusive process for Judicial Delegates and County Committee members should be devised to determine the Democratic endorsements for Supreme Court candidates and allow Judicial Delegates to participate in a meaningful way.  At the next NKD General Body meeting on August 15, you can vote on a better process, as the Policy Committee will present its recommendations to update the Judicial Elections Platform with incremental reforms for this broken process.