Janet DiFiore confirmed for Court of Appeals

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — The New York Senate has confirmed longtime Westchester County prosecutor Janet DiFiore as New York’s chief judge.

The voice vote, with no opposition, followed an hour of praise for the 60-year-old district attorney by both Republicans and Democrats.

DiFiore, also a former trial court judge, has been Westchester’s top prosecutor for a decade.

She replaces Judge Jonathan Lippman, who retired, as presiding judge at the seven-member Court of Appeals.

It’s New York’s highest court and often makes case law for the state. DiFiore also becomes administrative head of the state court system.

Sen. John DeFrancisco, a Syracuse Republican, praised her for helping overturn the murder conviction that wrongfully put one man in prison for 17 years.

DeFrancisco is pushing legislation for a new commission to review complaints of prosecutor misconduct.

One Rochester attorney told The Daily Record Thursday that DiFiore became known in part because of how she handled a wrongful conviction case in Westchester County.

Brian Shiffrin, a partner at Easton Thompson Kasperek Shiffrin, said DiFiore helped resolve the 2006 case in which a man convicted of raping and killing a high school classmate was cleared after she had DNA evidence checked through a national database.

“As a consequence of that investigation there were changes made in Westchester County in terms of prosecutions, how they’re handled, and police work, and how it’s handled, in an effort to reduce the likelihood of future wrongful convictions,” Shiffrin said.

“I believe that it suggests she has a sensitivity to the dangers with respect to wrongful convictions which I hope she continues to evidence as she chief judge,” he said.

Shiffrin also said that DiFiore will have an opportunity to influence, not just the Court of Appeals, but the entire court system in the state.

“It’s too early to predict what the priorities are going to be for Judge DiFiore when she becomes chief judge,” Shiffrin said.

But, he said, her experience as a prosecutor and as a judge previously in Westchester County, could provide a clue.

“She comes in with familiarity of some of the concerns that judges have and I think we might see her focusing, not so much on the changing way the court handles the cases in front of it, but initially things affecting the courts system,” he said.

Monroe County Public Defender Tim Donaher said DiFiore has “an impressive background.”

“We’re going to keep an open mind and hope that, as chief judge and chair of the (New York State ) Indigent Legal Services Board, that she’s going to show the same level of commitment to indigent defense issues that her predecessor did,” Donaher said, referring to Lippman.

During her confirmation hearing before Senate Judiciary Committee Wednesday, DiFiore told lawmakers she’ll maintain independence from the governor and judge each case on its own. She also said she could fill the position’s two roles, ruling on cases and administering and advocating for a good judiciary, without conflict.

“The cases are the cases and they are absolutely inviolate,” DiFiore said. “The core mission is the speedy, fair and just resolution of cases.”

Lippman had to retire this year after turning 70 last year. The term is 14 years, but DiFiore under current law would have to retire after a decade.

The court often makes case law for the state in rulings that sometimes influence other state and federal courts.

DiFiore, a Democrat like Cuomo and also a former judge, was questioned by some Republican senators Wednesday about gun rights, the governor’s authority to issue executive orders and the right of indigent New Yorkers to attorneys in civil cases.

She declined to comment on possible cases that she might later have to rule on. She said that she is a gun owner, with a pistol permit, and that the Second Amendment confers an individual right to bear arms.

“I understand the limitations of executive authority,” DiFiore said. “Each case will be decided on its merits.”

She said that she favors extending statewide the terms of the five-county settlement from 2014 ensuring criminal defendants have a lawyer at their first court appearance where bail is often set. She is not a judicial activist, she said.

Staff writer Bennett Loudon and The Associated Press contributed to this story.