Galligan, Graff, Marcelle lead race for state Supreme Court positions

Voters in New York’s Third Judicial District appear to have chosen two Democrats and a Conservative to fill three state Supreme Court justice positions that were up for election.

After Election Day on Wednesday morning, Democrats Meagan Galligan and Sharon Graff, along with Conservative Thomas Marcelle, received the most votes to secure 14-year terms on the bench, according to unofficial results. With 805 of 805 districts reporting, Galligan received 164,493 votes, while Graff received 162,909 and Marcelle received 162,803. Democrat Heidi Thais Cochrane trailed with 160,822 votes.

The Third Judicial District includes Albany, Columbia, Greene, Rensselaer, Schoharie, Sullivan, and Ulster counties.

Galligan, 41, is the Sullivan County district attorney and lives in the town of Forestburgh. She received her Juris Doctor from Georgetown University in 2006.

Galligan said she has been a member of the Sullivan County District Attorney’s Office since 2009 and is the first woman ever elected to the top prosecutor position in the county. She said she is among the most experienced trial attorneys in the county and has regularly appeared before the Supreme Court, as well as made arguments to the state Court of Appeals.

Graff, 51, is the principal court attorney for Ulster County Supreme Court Justice Julian Schreibman and lives in Cottekill in Ulster County. She earned her Juris Doctor in 1997 from SUNY Buffalo School of Law.

Graff has been the principal court attorney for Schreibman since 2018, prior to which she worked in private practice. She said her primary practice area was civil litigation and she represented members of the community and business owners in state Supreme Court, Federal District Court, U.S. Bankruptcy Court, and local courts.

Marcelle, 60, lives in Slingerlands in Albany County. He is a Cohoes City Court judge, as well as an acting Troy and Albany city court judge. Marcelle received his Juris Doctor in 1988 from Cornell Law School.

Marcelle, who also ran on the Republican Party line, said he has 33 years of experience working as a lawyer and has tried both criminal and civil cases. He said he has argued cases before the U.S. Supreme Court, the state Court of Appeals, federal circuit and district courts, and the state Supreme Court.