Courting court reform: looking back, moving forward.

• Author: Bartlett, Richard J.
• Position: New York - Honorable Hugh R. Jones Sixth Memorial Lecture

I am honored to have been asked to give the Sixth Annual Honorable Hugh R. Jones Lecture this afternoon. My thanks to Modern Courts and Albany Law School for giving me this opportunity to express my admiration and respect for Judge Jones, for whom this annual Lecture is named, and to talk about the affectionate regard Claire and I had for Hugh and his wonderful wife, Jean.

I have been associated with Modern Courts for many years as a Director, and now as Director Emeritus of the Committee for Modern Courts. My association with Albany Law School began in 1974, when I spoke at the graduation that year and received your honorary degree of Doctor of Laws. Thereafter, I served as a trustee and was honored to serve as President and Dean of the school from 1979 to 1986. Shortly after my tenure here, the space left by the moving of Shaeffer Library to the new building was converted to this wonderful room, the Alexander Courtroom. I am very pleased to be here this afternoon.

I first became acquainted with Hugh Jones in 1965, when he was serving as chair of the New York State Board of Social Welfare, and the legislature was considering proposals to establish Medicaid in New York. Hugh played a significant role in the prolonged negotiations between Governor Rockefeller and Speaker Travia as to the specifics of that huge new program to provide healthcare to the indigent. I was not involved in the negotiations, but came to know and admire this very able lawyer from Utica, who demonstrated his considerable skill at getting others to work out their differences, a skill that I am sure served him well on the Court of Appeals, years later.

Claire and I knew Hugh and Jean socially through meetings of the New York State Bar Association in New York and Lake Placid. They were a wonderful couple, and were always fun to be with. I cannot count the number of times Hugh would say in one context or another, "Dick and I both married way over our heads!" I know he had it right as to me.

After the rioting at Attica Prison in 1971, Hugh Jones was named chair of the Select Committee on Corrections by Governor Rockefeller. I served as a member of that committee, succeeding Hugh as chair when he resigned in 1972 to run for the Court of Appeals. Needless to say, Hugh provided excellent leadership of that inquiry into correctional programs and practices in New York and a fine report resulted, prepared by our very able executive director, Peter Preiser. At the same time, Hugh was President of the New York State Bar Association and managed to provide outstanding leadership to our profession in that capacity--a huge workload for any ordinary mortal, but Hugh pulled it off without apparent effort.

It was through the Hugh Jones campaign for election to the Court of Appeals, with his running mates Judge Gabrielli and Judge Wachtler, that Claire and I got to know Hugh and Jean even better. I had agreed to serve as the informal chair of Hugh's campaign in the Third Department and we had planned a get together at our island camp at Lake George for a campaign strategy meeting. Hugh and I drove up from New York City on a windy, rainy night, expecting to call our wives when we arrived in Bolton Landing for a boat ride to the island. When we got to Bolton, we found that the telephone service was dead! The prospect of sitting in my car until morning was not appealing, so we drove to the marina I used and found an outboard powered boat that did not require an ignition key to start. Desperate circumstances beget desperate acts, and so the candidate for the Court of Appeals and his area campaign manager "borrowed" the boat to reach Fourteen Mile Island that night. Needless to say, the boat was returned early the next morning before its absence was noted, and my profuse apologies were accepted by the marina owner.

There were many other wonderful times spent together at Lake George, New Hartford, and points in between. Claire and I last saw Hugh and Jean when we drove them back to their new apartment at the Masonic Home in Utica after Hugh received the John McCloy Award from Modern Courts in May 1998. It was less than three years later that Hugh died.

It has been suggested that recounting the events of Judge Breitel's years as Chief Judge of the Unified Court System, as I remember them, may be of interest to you. My memory of these events would not qualify as a history of what took place in the court system of New York during those early years of court administration, but rather as a series of anecdotes reflecting my personal recollection of these events. Webster defines "anecdote" to be "a usu[ally] short narrative of an interesting, amusing, or biographical incident." (1) So far so good, but it got better, or at least more accurately descriptive when I read a definition of "anecdotal" as "based on ... reports ... of [an] unscientific [nature]." (2)

The notion that this is an appropriate subject for a Jones Lecture came from several sources, the last of which was Victor Kovner. All emanated originally, I suspect, from our wonderful Chief Judge, Judith Kaye. And, it must be said that Judge Jones had a strong commitment to court reform as well.

It is certain that I would not have undertaken this if my oral history was not at least in the draft form it is. I am very indebted to two old friends for doing my oral history: Professor Sandy Stevenson and Steve Younger were the organizers of that effort, and the interrogators who extracted from me my recollection of my life, some of which must be excised in the editing process, as better left unsaid, or rather, left unwritten. Suffice it to say that I have relied heavily on the oral history draft in preparing these remarks.

The story begins in the fall of 1973, when then Associate Judge Charles D. Breitel was the Republican candidate for Chief Judge of the Court of Appeals, running against Jacob Fuchsberg. Judge Breitel spoke at a meeting in Saratoga and outlined his vision for a reformed court system. I spoke briefly at the same meeting as a candidate for supreme court justice for the fourth judicial district, having been given an interim appointment by Governor Rockefeller in September of that year. Neither of us, I am sure, gave the slightest thought to the possibility that I would become Judge Breitel's lieutenant in his court reform effort. However, I found that Judge Breitel's vision resonated with me and I may have said so at the meeting.

After the November election, Judge Breitel, as the Chief Judge-elect, began to put together his team and he first gave attention to the appointment of a new state administrator of the courts, for which he formed a search committee. I received a call from Bob MacCrate, an old friend, who asked if I would be interested in being considered for that role. My response was affirmative and I was then interviewed by the search committee in New York City with other candidates. I received a call from Judge Breitel in which he said that he was concerned that a supreme court justice serving as state administrator of the courts would raise problems as to whether that constituted another "public office" forbidden by the State Constitution, and would I please do a memorandum of law addressing that concern. It will not surprise you to know that my memorandum found no impediment, constitutional or otherwise, to a supreme court judge also holding the state administrator role. I was never sure whether this assignment was a form of test or a sincere inquiry as to the constitutional issue. I suspect the former.

I then received a second call from the Chief Judge telling me that the search committee had recommended my appointment, that he was happy to concur in that recommendation, and would I accept? My reply was "yes," of course. I was then sitting in a civil trial term in Schenectady when he called me there, and I shut down the part that day, ending a promising career as a trial judge, less than four months after it began!

The next several weeks remain a blur in my memory, so much having happened in so short a time. On January 15, Judge Breitel convened a press conference in the Court of Appeals Judges' conference room in Albany to announce my appointment, with the advice and consent of the four Presiding Justices of the Appellate Divisions constituting the administrative board. He used some extravagant language in describing what he expected me to accomplish, ending by saying, "He will be worthy of being canonized if he succeeds." We certainly had some successes over the next five years, but fell far short of deserving that lofty designation. At least I can say I never heard a word from Rome!

The legislature then passed and Governor Malcolm Wilson signed a bill amending the Judiciary Law to declare that a justice of the supreme court could also serve as State Administrative Judge, which "shall be deemed one of his judicial functions and shall not constitute holding a public office." (3) This was probably unnecessary, but it did...