Cuts hit state judges
Two local justices among 46 leaving bench due to virusrelated budget cuts.
Albany Two local state Supreme Court justices, including one on the Capital Region’s appellate court, will be among 46 judges leaving the bench at the end of the year due to pandemic-related budget cuts in the state court system.
State Supreme Court Justices Eugene “Gus” Devine, who sits on the Appellate Division’s Third Department, and Raymond Elliott III, based in Rensselaer County, were denied the chance to be recertified for two more years. State judges in New York have a mandatory retirement age of 70, but can be recertified in two-year increments by the court system to serve to age 76. In her weekly address on the COVID -19 pandemic Monday, Chief Judge Janet Difiore said the court system must cut $300 million in savings in this year’s previously approved budget, which led the system’s administrative board to deny the recertifications of the 46 judges this year.
Difiore said it was a difficult but necessary decision that will save $55 million over the next two years. She said the move, along with a strict hiring freeze, deferral of raises and other decisions would hopefully “put us in a position to achieve enough cost savings to avoid or at least greatly limit layoffs in our nonjudicial workforce, something we regard as an absolute last resort.”
Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz, who chairs the Assembly Judiciary Committee, told the state’s chief administrative judge, Lawrence Marks, he was troubled by the pending cuts. Dinowitz said the elimination of judges will take away additional judgeships created for underserved judicial districts in New York City.
“I understand the budget crisis facing our state and recognize that certification of justices who have turned 70 is neither guaranteed nor required,” Dinowitz told Marks in a letter. “However, this decision, which
by definition is a form of age discrimination, will exacerbate the crisis facing our court system and will significantly impact the already huge backlog facing many of the courts due to COVID -19.”
Dinowitz said he hoped a massive increase in federal aid or raising taxes on the wealthy could help pay for the judges.
Devine, a Colonie Democrat who turns 72 this month, has been an attorney since 1976 and a former Albany County public defender.
He was elected to Supreme Court in 2006 and named to the Appellate Division, the region’s 28-county appellate court, in 2014.
Elliott, 73, a Democrat from North Greenbush, has been an attorney since 1973. Elliott was a North Greenbush town justice for 27 years before being elected to state Supreme Court in 2011.
Their pending departures follow the announcement of state Supreme Court Justice Thomas Breslin, administrative judge of the 3rd Judicial District, that he will retire this month.