Following the scathing report of the New York state's judicial conduct commission published on Monday, Chief Administrative Judge Gail Prudenti announced on Tuesday that the court would follow the commission's recommendations to avoid ‘the appearance of favoritism.'
The commission's report, among other things, found that the court had not posted vacant administrative jobs externally, resulting in a system of favoritism where vacancies could be filled only by applicants who had personal connections to judges and court staffers.
Due to the presence of systemic hiring conventions containing loopholes, charges of nepotism could not be established against Luis Gonzalez, the presiding justice of the First Department, for hiring his ex-wife and others with personal connections. However, the anomaly was noted and strongly criticized.
The conduct commission went against the convention of delegating court staff recruitment to the discretion of presiding justices or clerks of the court. It issued specific recommendations to overhaul the recruitment system in appellate courts. Principal recommendations include:
- Public advertising of job requirements,
- Vetting of applicants by senior staffers and judges,
- Recusal of employees from hiring process where the applicant is a relative, and
- Assigning employees to positions that minimize conflicts of interest between supervisors and subordinates
Thomas Klonick, a town justice in Perinton, and the commission's chairman said, “The commission's recommendations focused on making the hiring process in the future a better one, one which would enhance public confidence in our judicial system.”
The defective hiring practices went on despite the presence of a 99-page written policy from the 2000s, used by the Second Department. The document, which had gone largely unnoticed and had accumulated the dust of a decade, was distributed to each presiding justice on Tuesday as a potential guide.
Each presiding justice is encouraged to create hiring protocols in writing to be shared with applicants and the human resources department of the courts.
While Gonzalez, who was being investigated for charges of nepotism was able to save his skin because the vacancies filled by his ex-wife and other friends and family were never posted publicly, the practice drew flak from the commission.
The report mentioned, “Such a practice undermines the judicial obligation to make appointments based on merit, avoiding favoritism and nepotism.”
