By: The Associated Press//May 6, 2013
ALBANY — The New York Senate has confirmed Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s second nominee to the state’s highest court.
The Senate approved Justice Sheila Abdus-Salaam to the seven-member Court of Appeals after several legislators praised her experience and qualifications.
The 60-year-old Abdus-Salaam is the first African-American woman on the court that reviews lower court decisions, interprets statutes and often makes case law for New York.
The Barnard and Columbia Law School graduate was elected to the trial-level state Supreme Court in 1993, was re-elected in 2007 and joined the state’s midlevel Appellate Division court in Manhattan in 2009. She replaces Judge Theodore Jones Jr., who died in November.
The Senate confirmed City University of New York Law School professor Jenny Rivera to the court earlier this year.