N.Y. Judge Lost Election Case, But Won Sympathy for Her Cause
The New York judge who mounted an unsuccessful challenge to the state’s method of selecting judges wasn’t optimistic about its chances.
“I wasn’t happy when the U.S. Supreme Court took the case, and after sitting through the oral arguments in October, I didn’t have the feeling that we were going to win,” said Margarita Lopez Torres in an interview with the New York Times. The Supreme Court ruled against Lopez Torres last week when it upheld New York’s party-controlled system of judicial nominations, saying there is no constitutional right to a fair shot at winning a nomination.
Lopez Torres had claimed her refusal to hire court personnel recommended by the party led to her blackballing as a party-approved candidate. None of the Supreme Court’s justices agreed with her position, although some wrote separately to question whether judicial elections are the best way to choose judges.
Lopez Torres, now a judge in New York’s surrogate court, sees the bright side. “It was a disappointment, but I’m not a cynical person,” she told the Times. “Usually judicial elections are under the radar, so if there’s one thing my case has accomplished, it’s been to open a dialogue on an open secret.”
That optimistic attitude has helped propel the Puerto Rican-born Lopez Torres from the ghetto to law school at Rutgers and a judgeship. She is an avid biker with “an unstuffy approach to her magisterial duties,” the newspaper says.
“I am somewhat surprised to find myself in a job where a large part of it is watching over people’s estates,” she said, “because coming from the ghetto in East New York, I didn’t even know what an estate was.”
