Judicial chess game in Nassau while Hochul again is strangely mum

                                                                                 

Zoom meeting of the Senate Judiciary Committee interviewing Judge Eileen Goggin (lower right) for Family Court on June 1

      

Incumbent judges and judicial candidates are being moved around the Nassau Courts like pieces on a chess board, making hard to keep track of who's in and who's out on the local judicial circuit.

Three district court judges were quietly promoted to Family Court last month by Gov. Kathy Hochul, creating vacancies on district court that must be filled by Monday, Aug. 8,  to make it onto the November ballot -- while Hochul signed legislation on June 30 to create one more family court position while adding another Supreme court justice to the Nassau-Suffolk court system -- after the state refused to recertify  several Supreme Court judges older than 70 in the past few years.

Hochul didn't announce the three family court promotions but did issue a news release about her appointment, from Nassau, of the first "little person" to the state's Court of Claims.

And rumors are flying fast about the additional Supreme Court justice, with some talk that Family court judge Lisa Cairo, the daughter of Nassau Republican Chairman Joseph Cairo, will be cross-endorsed in November for Supreme Court.

The political parties have yet to make their official designation of their Supreme Court candidates.

But it's all rather confusing.

Hochul, who won a resounding victory last month for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination in November, appointed three Nassau district court judges to Family court with no media announcement of the promotions.

The unheralded appointments are similar to the inexplicably secret appointments Hochul made to the Nassau University Medical Center board in late December. 

So much for Hochul transparency.

At least the State Senate publicly confirmed Hochul's appointments of District Court Judges Colin O'Donnell, Joy Watson and Eileen Goggin to Nassau's Family Court last month.

All three had been cross-endorsed for Family Court on the November ballot by the county Democratic and Republican parties.

Their promotions created at least three district court vacancies that must be filled by Aug. 8 to get the interim appointments onto the ballot on November 8.

Republican County Executive Bruce Blakeman is expected to nominate three already cross-endorsed district court candidates for immediate appointment by the county legislature.

It was unclear which three of the five lawyers cross-endorsed for district will be appointed.

But the appointees must run again in November.

Meanwhile, Hochul on May 27 issued a news release announcing 12 appointments to the state's Court of Claims, the court that handles claims against the state and state agencies.

From Nassau, she appointed Sarika Kapoor, an associate court attorney in Nassau's Supreme Court law department.

After listing Kapoor's legal credentials, Hochul's release added, "Kapoor's parents are from India, she is a first generation American, and she will be the first little person appointed to the court."

Little person? It seems that physical characteristic either should not have been mentioned -- or should have been featured in the release, rather than dropped at the end of a long paragraph as an after thought.

 Here is the paragraph from Hochul's press release: