A Back-flip allows the party bosses to control the courts by having their candidates for lower courts put into office without an election, as well as having lower court judges who have shown their loyalty to the party machine elevated to the New York State Supreme Court.
The mechanism of a back-flip is fairly simple. The machine backs a lower court incumbent judge for re-election by leading his or her petitioning efforts and by making backroom deals with machine-connected and/or controlled elected officials to win the judicial primary. The vast majority of lower court judges aspire to be moved up to the Supreme Court, the election to which is controlled by County bosses at the judicial convention. The judicial convention happens every year a few days after the primary. Besides higher pay, the Supreme Court is also attractive to many aging-out lower court judges, because it allows for three "age extensions," two years each, past the age of 70--the mandatory retiring age in lower courts.
Therefore, after the primary, the incumbent who just won the re-election to lower court with party bosses backing is happy to be elevated by them to the Supreme Court at the judicial convention. A few days later, at the county committee meeting, the party chairman Frank Seddio inserts or back-fills his candidate for judge at the now vacant lower court level, without an election.
How the Brooklyn Political Bosses Back-Filled Judges in 2018
The back-flip is a simple political maneuver by which the County machine first collects petitions for an incumbent judge, then moves the re-elected incumbent to the Supreme Court within a week of the primary at the Judicial Convention and finally, inserts the party’s candidate into the now vacant seat of the incumbent, bypassing the voters altogether.
More on the 2018 Back-Flips
Tweed’s
successors and their backers will be filling open seats (three each in
Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens, five in the Bronx and one on Staten
Island).Rubber-stamp elections with “candidates” picked by party bosses is how we get a lot of lousy judges.
But shenanigans do abound. In Brooklyn, all three Supreme Court seats will be given to Civil Court judges who won their primaries last week (Ingrid Joseph, Devin Cohen and Lisa Ottley). That will free up their lines on the November ballot for three new, just-tapped people, who will win Civil Court judgeships (a 10-year gig paying $193,500) without having a pesky primary. Daily News 2018
But shenanigans do abound. In Brooklyn, all three Supreme Court seats will be given to Civil Court judges who won their primaries last week (Ingrid Joseph, Devin Cohen and Lisa Ottley). That will free up their lines on the November ballot for three new, just-tapped people, who will win Civil Court judgeships (a 10-year gig paying $193,500) without having a pesky primary. Daily News 2018
The bench press: The terrible process by which New York's judges are chosen (Daily News)
In Brooklyn, all three Supreme Court seats will be given to Civil Court judges who won their primaries last week (Ingrid Joseph, Devin Cohen and Lisa Ottley). That will free up their lines on the November ballot for three new, just-tapped people, who will win Civil Court judgeships (a 10-year gig paying $193,500) without having a pesky primary.Kings of corruption: In Brooklyn, party bosses drown democracy
Democratic Moves on Brooklyn’s Judicial Ballot Getting Scrutiny (City Limits)
Kings of corruption: In Brooklyn, party bosses drown democracy (Daily New
Three Unopposed Civil Court Candidates Emerge From Lively Brooklyn Dems MeetingFrom a fraught meeting of Brooklyn Democrats on Thursday night that stretched over six hours and offered a forum for feisty progressive-leaning voters to rage against the party machine, three candidates for Civil Court have emerged to run unopposed in the November election.
From a fraught meeting of Brooklyn Democrats on Thursday night that stretched over six hours and offered a forum for feisty progressive-leaning voters to rage against the party machine, three candidates for Civil Court have emerged to run unopposed in the November election.
The judicial nominees were picked through a time-honored, complex and repeatedly lambasted system for putting judges on the ballot in New York City that critics allege is controlled by party bosses and leaves little choice to the voters.
But this time, the powers that be in the Brooklyn Democratic Party machine, which is run by Frank Seddio, a former Surrogate’s Court judge, are faced with the prospect of an energized left that has proven to be a potent political force at the polls.
In September primary elections, for example, progressive upstart Julia Salazar, 27, who faced harsh criticism in the weeks leading up to the vote over the presentation of her personal history, trounced party stalwart Martin Dilan, 68, for a New York State Senate seat that covers north Brooklyn with 59 percent of votes.
At the party meeting on Thursday night, Brooklyn progressive groups focused their energy during the meeting on picking up seats in party leadership positions rather than fighting for seats on the bench, said Jessica Thurston, a spokeswoman for the New Kings Democrats, and they were successful at picking up some seats on the county committee.
“The writing is on the wall for them,” Thurston said of the establishment party leaders. “We want this to be a democratic process. It’s still not there.”
But party leader Seddio and other establishment figures didn’t get everything they wanted: Seddio supported David Pepper, a state Supreme Court law clerk who ran unsuccessfully last year for a Civil Court seat, to take the seat that went to Barry, said Bob Liff, a party spokesman (who works for Arzt).
In the wake of their primary wins two weeks ago, last week three
civil court judges were named by the Democratic party’s judicial
convention to the Kings County Supreme Court. That move opened up three
ballot lines for new civil court candidates to run in the general
election. Unless last-minute challengers appear at the county committee
meeting, Seddio and his inner circle essentially will anoint three
judges.
Such slippery ballot line maneuvering means that those judges won’t face primary challengers who might raise questions about their track records. Yet the likely nominees merit scrutiny.
At the 2018 County Committee Meeting After Jo Anna Simon Gave Her Proxies to Team Seddio to Stay in Power Simon lead the effort to Back-Flip her District Leader into A Judgeship
Anne Swern, slated for the Civil Court district one line (elected by voters in Downtown Brooklyn, greater Park Slope and Bay Ridge), is a familiar name given her campaign for Brooklyn DA last year. A former high-ranking executive in the DA’s office under Joe Hynes, Swern was initially seen by many observers as a viable contender in the 2017 race. But neither Hynes nor the party machine supported her campaign, causing Swern to finish a distant second.
Because her campaign failed to take off, Swern’s influential role in
various Hynes era controversies never came to light. Swern’s name,
however, showed up several times in the city’s Department of
Investigations (DOI) 2014 report regarding misconduct in the Hynes administration.
As seen in the report, during Hynes’ bid for reelection, Swern and other members of the DA’s inner circle used their office email to discuss campaign strategy. Although Hynes sent “several thousand campaign-related emails” from his official email with administration staffers including Amy Feinstein (his #2-ranking executive) and Swern (#3), nobody in the DA’s inner circle appeared able to stop such illegal activity.
The DOI report also shows that Swern regularly gave campaign advice to Hynes, and in one specific exchange she focused on how the DA should respond to the issue of wrongful convictions that dominated the 2013 campaign. In response to the charge that Hynes had condoned prosecutorial misconduct, Swern suggested that Hynes give the following response at a candidates’ forum: “Hindsight produces 20/20 vision and of course looking back we could have done things better, but given what we knew at the time—there are no specific examples.”
Swern herself was directly involved in one of the most controversial cases of the Hynes era, that of John Giuca. While at Rikers in 2005 awaiting trial for the murder of Fairfield University football star Mark Fisher, Giuca allegedly confessed to fellow detainee John Avitto, who had a drug problem. Swern promptly told her deputies at the treatment courts “to mark [Avitto’s] case for special attention.”
In 2015, Avitto recanted his statements regarding Giuca, and earlier
this year an appeals court overturned Giuca’s conviction because the
prosecution concealed the favorable treatment Avitto received from the
DA’s office in exchange for testifying. Swern says that “‘special
attention’ did not mean ‘special treatment.’ I was just trying to make
sure the case didn’t fall through the cracks.”
The DOI report also highlighted Hynes’ administration’s dubious use of civil asset forfeiture funds to pay for campaign consulting. As the office’s #3, Swern should have been aware of the payouts of over $1m in asset money that had been funneled to Hynes’ consultant Mortimer Matz over the preceding decade. “I had nothing to do with that,” Swern insists.
All of Swern’s campaign work for Hynes, as well as involvement in wrongful convictions, would be fair game for debate if she faced a primary in the judge’s race. But with the full support of Assemblywoman JoAnne Simon and her allies at Central Brooklyn Independent Democrats (CBID), Swern stands to receive a free pass from Seddio to a judgeship.
Jill Epstein is the likely nominee for Civil Court district four (elected by voters in greater Crown Heights and Brownsville). When she first ran (unsuccessfully) for civil court judge in 2014, it was reported that Epstein had been admonished by courts in both New York and New Jersey for her improper handling of financial information.
In her second unsuccessful bid for civil court judge two years later, Epstein made some curious money moves. On 2/26/16, a Florida-based entity named Sales and Marketing Innovation LLC loaned $250,000 to Epstein’s campaign. The address traces to a residence in Boynton Beach, Florida. After she lost the primary in September, Epstein then refunded the $250,000 to the LLC and loaned her campaign $160,000 of her own money (nearly all of which her campaign later “forgave.”).
What is clear in Epstein’s filings is her close ties to Clarence Norman, the former Democratic Party boss that DA Hynes sent to prison for campaign law violations. Since returning to Brooklyn in 2011, Norman has steadily regained influence over the party’s decision-making. In her 2016 race, Epstein steered over $60,000 to consultants Musa Moore and Peter Weiss, Norman’s longtime close allies. Epstein could not be reached for comment.
Carroll Gave His Proxies to Seddio to Make 2 Time Loser Barry A Back-Flipper Judge, Cutting Out the Voters
The third civil court judge will run on the county-wide ballot
line—meaning the nominee will be chosen by Democratic district leaders
(rather than the county committee). One name in the mix is Rupert Barry,
who has also lost twice in recent previous primaries for judge. In his
2017 campaign, Barry retained the services of Musa Moore and hit the
stump with Assemblyman Bobby Carroll and Central Brooklyn Independent
Democrats veteran Jim Brennan.
At Thursday night’s meeting, Carroll and others from CBID are expected to back Seddio against challenges waged by New Kings Democrats regarding party leadership positions and voting rules. The reformers (CBID) are thus backing the old guard (Seddio and Norman) against the insurgents (NKD). Meanwhile, three judges will be placed on the ballot without substantial debate or vetting.
That may sound like democracy as usual in Brooklyn, but what’s different this time around is that many more people are participating in the county meeting. Thursday night likely marks the first battle of the 2020 elections.
I Fingered the Wrong Guy (Indypendent)
What is A Judicial Back Fill?
How Does the Machine Use the Election Law to Cut Out the Voters
Joe Crowley Come to Power in Back-Flip
Democratic Moves on Brooklyn’s Judicial Ballot Getting Scrutiny (City Limits)
Such slippery ballot line maneuvering means that those judges won’t face primary challengers who might raise questions about their track records. Yet the likely nominees merit scrutiny.
At the 2018 County Committee Meeting After Jo Anna Simon Gave Her Proxies to Team Seddio to Stay in Power Simon lead the effort to Back-Flip her District Leader into A Judgeship
Anne Swern, slated for the Civil Court district one line (elected by voters in Downtown Brooklyn, greater Park Slope and Bay Ridge), is a familiar name given her campaign for Brooklyn DA last year. A former high-ranking executive in the DA’s office under Joe Hynes, Swern was initially seen by many observers as a viable contender in the 2017 race. But neither Hynes nor the party machine supported her campaign, causing Swern to finish a distant second.
As seen in the report, during Hynes’ bid for reelection, Swern and other members of the DA’s inner circle used their office email to discuss campaign strategy. Although Hynes sent “several thousand campaign-related emails” from his official email with administration staffers including Amy Feinstein (his #2-ranking executive) and Swern (#3), nobody in the DA’s inner circle appeared able to stop such illegal activity.
The DOI report also shows that Swern regularly gave campaign advice to Hynes, and in one specific exchange she focused on how the DA should respond to the issue of wrongful convictions that dominated the 2013 campaign. In response to the charge that Hynes had condoned prosecutorial misconduct, Swern suggested that Hynes give the following response at a candidates’ forum: “Hindsight produces 20/20 vision and of course looking back we could have done things better, but given what we knew at the time—there are no specific examples.”
Swern herself was directly involved in one of the most controversial cases of the Hynes era, that of John Giuca. While at Rikers in 2005 awaiting trial for the murder of Fairfield University football star Mark Fisher, Giuca allegedly confessed to fellow detainee John Avitto, who had a drug problem. Swern promptly told her deputies at the treatment courts “to mark [Avitto’s] case for special attention.”
The DOI report also highlighted Hynes’ administration’s dubious use of civil asset forfeiture funds to pay for campaign consulting. As the office’s #3, Swern should have been aware of the payouts of over $1m in asset money that had been funneled to Hynes’ consultant Mortimer Matz over the preceding decade. “I had nothing to do with that,” Swern insists.
All of Swern’s campaign work for Hynes, as well as involvement in wrongful convictions, would be fair game for debate if she faced a primary in the judge’s race. But with the full support of Assemblywoman JoAnne Simon and her allies at Central Brooklyn Independent Democrats (CBID), Swern stands to receive a free pass from Seddio to a judgeship.
Jill Epstein is the likely nominee for Civil Court district four (elected by voters in greater Crown Heights and Brownsville). When she first ran (unsuccessfully) for civil court judge in 2014, it was reported that Epstein had been admonished by courts in both New York and New Jersey for her improper handling of financial information.
In her second unsuccessful bid for civil court judge two years later, Epstein made some curious money moves. On 2/26/16, a Florida-based entity named Sales and Marketing Innovation LLC loaned $250,000 to Epstein’s campaign. The address traces to a residence in Boynton Beach, Florida. After she lost the primary in September, Epstein then refunded the $250,000 to the LLC and loaned her campaign $160,000 of her own money (nearly all of which her campaign later “forgave.”).
What is clear in Epstein’s filings is her close ties to Clarence Norman, the former Democratic Party boss that DA Hynes sent to prison for campaign law violations. Since returning to Brooklyn in 2011, Norman has steadily regained influence over the party’s decision-making. In her 2016 race, Epstein steered over $60,000 to consultants Musa Moore and Peter Weiss, Norman’s longtime close allies. Epstein could not be reached for comment.
Carroll Gave His Proxies to Seddio to Make 2 Time Loser Barry A Back-Flipper Judge, Cutting Out the Voters
At Thursday night’s meeting, Carroll and others from CBID are expected to back Seddio against challenges waged by New Kings Democrats regarding party leadership positions and voting rules. The reformers (CBID) are thus backing the old guard (Seddio and Norman) against the insurgents (NKD). Meanwhile, three judges will be placed on the ballot without substantial debate or vetting.
That may sound like democracy as usual in Brooklyn, but what’s different this time around is that many more people are participating in the county meeting. Thursday night likely marks the first battle of the 2020 elections.
I Fingered the Wrong Guy (Indypendent)
What is A Judicial Back Fill?
How Does the Machine Use the Election Law to Cut Out the Voters
'Smoke-Filled Rooms' Still Rule New York Judicial Elections (WNYC) * More on How the Machine Runs Judges Unopposed (NY1) * Party Boss Has Firm Grip On Judgeships (NYT) * Borough Dems chief involved in 'illegal' fund-raiser for judicial candidates (NYDN) *Did Silver Corrupt the Manhattan Court? * All About Judicial Races and Corruption Bronx cheers as DA playsmusical chairs with judge. (WNYC) * Johnson Gets Judge Nod; Clark Tapped To Run For D.A.(Bronx Chronicle) * Johnson’s quick transformation from a candidate for re-election to a nominee for state court justice – without a vote being cast – is raising questions about the clout that state election law gives to party leaders and shedding light on New York’s largely obscure judicial electoral system.
There is a strong buzz that at his final good bye after raping the courts and destroying democracy in Brooklyn, the Brooklyn county leader frank Seddio is doing a legacy move. Seddio is preparing to do several judicial back flips. in the 4th judicial district (Ottley is unopposed in the primary it is expected that Ottley will be moving up and chichi will replace Ottley as the democratic candidate in the 4th primary. In the 1st judicial district, it is expected that Devin Cohen will be moved up to Supreme Court and replaced by current District Leader Ann Swern. There are other flips also considered for Judgeships. These flips are completely undemocratic since the voters are removed from the process of judge elections for 10 years.
This article from the Jewish Press Openly Talks About Back Filling Judges
Another primary contest next month involves a race for civil court judge in Brooklyn where four candidates (two incumbents and two challengers) are running to fill two positions. Loren Baily-Schiffman, 67, is seeking her third 10-year term to civil court. Baily-Schiffman, who appears on the ballot as Loren Baily, is currently filling in as an acting Supreme Court judge and wants to continue in that post beyond the mandatory retirement age of 70. This is where New York’s arcane court system and election law gets a bit complicated. A week after she runs for reelection to civil court, Baily-Schiffman plans to seek one of three open seats on the state Supreme Court bench during a judicial convention where delegates, chosen by Democratic Party leaders, nominate candidates for the higher court for the general election. A Democratic nomination to the Supreme Court in Brooklyn is tantamount to victory in November because of the party registration advantage in the borough. Baily-Schiffman says there are about a dozen people seeking a spot on the Supreme Court, which pays $208,000 a year. Civil court judges earn $175,000 a year. “I’m running for reelection to Civil Court and then I’m running for Supreme Court,” Baily-Schiffman told The Jewish Press. “The county organization can fill my Civil Court slot. That’s called a flip seat.” There’s one other wrinkle in this process. Baily-Schiffman only has three years before reaching mandatory retirement age, but if she sits on the Supreme Court, she can petition the Office of Court Administration up to three times for a two-year extension while someone else gets appointed by district leaders to the seat she retires from. That would mean another judge serving on the Supreme Court for 10 years from Brooklyn without an election. Baily-Schiffman has her detractors. She has been called a “liberal judge” who does not always side with law enforcement officials. But Baily-Schiffman says, “I am extremely fair. I treat everyone in my courtroom the same no matter who they are. Everyone gets a fair hearing in my courtroom. It’s important that everybody’s rights be respected and everybody’s individual person be respected. That’s what happens in my courtroom, and it has for 20 years.” Her husband, Harry, is a congregant at the Young Israel of Flatbush, and while Baily-Schiffman does not belong to a synagogue, she says she has much support in the Orthodox Jewish community. Widowed once and divorced once, the Prospect Park South resident is on her third marriage. She has one child, four stepsons, and 15 grandchildren. She holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from the Ohio-based private liberal arts Oberlin College and was admitted to the New York state Bar in 1978 after attending New York Law School. The only other Jewish candidate seeking the Civil Court position is Saul Cohen, 37, of Midwood and a congregant of Bnei Shelomo v’Yaffa, a Syrian-Sephardic congregation in the Sheepshead Bay section of Brooklyn. Cohen is married and has three children. He is an alumnus of Rutgers University, graduating with an Administration of Justice degree. He received his law degree from Seton Hall University Law School. Cohen is an insurgent candidate, not backed by Brooklyn’s party leaders. We’ll see if voters go to the polls next month choosing party-backed candidates or insurgents who call themselves independent Democrats.
What is a Machine Back Fill?
The sleazy deal that allowed Robert Johnson to trade his Bronx district attorney’s job for a judge’s seat in state Supreme Court will come with a mega payday. Johnson, a Bronx native, announced plans to resign almost immediately after winning the Democratic primary on Sept. 10. That allowed the county’s party leaders to choose his replacement on the November general-election ballot, Appellate Division Judge Darcel Clark. In the heavily Democratic Bronx, the Democratic nomination is tantamount to election. Johnson denied widespread reports and criticism that he was approached by fellow Democrats to time his resignation to avoid a possible primary. But government watchdogs said his actions and those of Bronx Democratic leaders smelled. “They want to be able to control who holds that office if you open it up to the voters, which is the Democratic way, you can’t control who goes in there,” said Dick Dadey, executive director of Citizens Union. “That ability to determine who is representing their interests in law enforcement is being undermined by this electoral process.”
Johnson presided over a DA’s office that perpetually had the worst conviction rate in the city for major crimes. When it came to government corruption, it was US Attorney Preet Bharara who brought cases that sent Bronx politicians to prison — not Johnson.
There is a strong buzz that at his final good bye after raping the courts and destroying democracy in Brooklyn, the Brooklyn county leader frank Seddio is doing a legacy move. Seddio is preparing to do several judicial back flips. in the 4th judicial district (Ottley is unopposed in the primary it is expected that Ottley will be moving up and chichi will replace Ottley as the democratic candidate in the 4th primary. In the 1st judicial district, it is expected that Devin Cohen will be moved up to Supreme Court and replaced by current District Leader Ann Swern. There are other flips also considered for Judgeships. These flips are completely undemocratic since the voters are removed from the process of judge elections for 10 years.
This article from the Jewish Press Openly Talks About Back Filling Judges
Another primary contest next month involves a race for civil court judge in Brooklyn where four candidates (two incumbents and two challengers) are running to fill two positions. Loren Baily-Schiffman, 67, is seeking her third 10-year term to civil court. Baily-Schiffman, who appears on the ballot as Loren Baily, is currently filling in as an acting Supreme Court judge and wants to continue in that post beyond the mandatory retirement age of 70. This is where New York’s arcane court system and election law gets a bit complicated. A week after she runs for reelection to civil court, Baily-Schiffman plans to seek one of three open seats on the state Supreme Court bench during a judicial convention where delegates, chosen by Democratic Party leaders, nominate candidates for the higher court for the general election. A Democratic nomination to the Supreme Court in Brooklyn is tantamount to victory in November because of the party registration advantage in the borough. Baily-Schiffman says there are about a dozen people seeking a spot on the Supreme Court, which pays $208,000 a year. Civil court judges earn $175,000 a year. “I’m running for reelection to Civil Court and then I’m running for Supreme Court,” Baily-Schiffman told The Jewish Press. “The county organization can fill my Civil Court slot. That’s called a flip seat.” There’s one other wrinkle in this process. Baily-Schiffman only has three years before reaching mandatory retirement age, but if she sits on the Supreme Court, she can petition the Office of Court Administration up to three times for a two-year extension while someone else gets appointed by district leaders to the seat she retires from. That would mean another judge serving on the Supreme Court for 10 years from Brooklyn without an election. Baily-Schiffman has her detractors. She has been called a “liberal judge” who does not always side with law enforcement officials. But Baily-Schiffman says, “I am extremely fair. I treat everyone in my courtroom the same no matter who they are. Everyone gets a fair hearing in my courtroom. It’s important that everybody’s rights be respected and everybody’s individual person be respected. That’s what happens in my courtroom, and it has for 20 years.” Her husband, Harry, is a congregant at the Young Israel of Flatbush, and while Baily-Schiffman does not belong to a synagogue, she says she has much support in the Orthodox Jewish community. Widowed once and divorced once, the Prospect Park South resident is on her third marriage. She has one child, four stepsons, and 15 grandchildren. She holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from the Ohio-based private liberal arts Oberlin College and was admitted to the New York state Bar in 1978 after attending New York Law School. The only other Jewish candidate seeking the Civil Court position is Saul Cohen, 37, of Midwood and a congregant of Bnei Shelomo v’Yaffa, a Syrian-Sephardic congregation in the Sheepshead Bay section of Brooklyn. Cohen is married and has three children. He is an alumnus of Rutgers University, graduating with an Administration of Justice degree. He received his law degree from Seton Hall University Law School. Cohen is an insurgent candidate, not backed by Brooklyn’s party leaders. We’ll see if voters go to the polls next month choosing party-backed candidates or insurgents who call themselves independent Democrats.
What is a Machine Back Fill?
Johnson presided over a DA’s office that perpetually had the worst conviction rate in the city for major crimes. When it came to government corruption, it was US Attorney Preet Bharara who brought cases that sent Bronx politicians to prison — not Johnson.
Joe Crowley Come to Power in Back-Flip
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