Transit Strike Judge Up For Appeals Post

By RICHARD STEIER

On the same day that Transport Workers' Union Local 100 President Roger Toussaint learned that if re-elected he'll have to deal with Metropolitan Transportation Authority Chairman Peter Kalikow at least a few months longer than he'd hoped, he also found out that his least-favorite judge is up for a double promotion.

Brooklyn Supreme Court Justice Theodore Jones, who sentenced Mr. Toussaint to a week in jail and imposed heavy penalties against both Local 100 members and the union itself for last year's transit strike, is one of seven candidates to fill a vacancy on the Court of Appeals. Associate Judge Albert M. Rosenblatt is stepping down from the state's highest court at the end of 2006 because he has reached the mandatory retirement age.

If he were selected, Justice Jones would jump over three Appellate Division Justices: Richard Andrias, Steven Fisher and Thomas Mercure. The other three persons whose names were put forward by the State Commission on Judicial Nomination were Deputy Chief Administrative Judge Juanita Bing Newton, Manhattan Supreme Court Justice James Yates, and George Carpinello, a private attorney who chairs the state Advisory Committee on Civil Practice.

If there is any good news for Mr. Toussaint about Justice Jones's nomination, it is that the choice on the vacancy will fall to Governor-elect Eliot Spitzer. If it were Governor Pataki's call, he might find it hard to resist tapping the Local 100 leader's judicial nemesis, regardless of the merits of the other nominees.