// Chief Judge Janet DiFiore presided over the New York Unified Court System for the last six years, but announced today that she’ll step down from that post at the end of August. This sets up Governor Kathy Hochul to select a replacement for confirmation by the same state senate that DiFiore managed to completely screw over on her way out the door.

Having tossed the newly drawn congressional and state senate maps in favor of ones drawn by a special master, DiFiore wrote the majority for a split Court of Appeals that managed to create chaos for New York politics and required an expensive delay in key primaries.

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There’s a decent argument that the NY state legislature had drawn maps more favorable to Democrats than the Platonic ideal — though that’s not conclusive as some simulations suggested the legislative maps were more favorable to the GOP than they needed to be — but whatever the case, the outcome DiFiore heaped on the state amounted to a partisan gerrymander in the other direction. New York created some serious FrankenDistricts with these maps, ensuring that the GOP gets overrepresented in a state that votes overwhelmingly Democratic.

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The opinion is a boneheaded mess, playing up the extent of a partisan gerrymander where the maps actually just returned a prior GOP-favoring partisan gerrymander closer to normal. In an effort to appeal to some sort of manufactured “we go high” mentality, DiFiore’s opinion ripped up a number of logical districts forcing popular legislators to retire or mount wholly unnecessary primary challenges against longtime incumbents in newly drawn districts created by a special referee that the Court of Appeals didn’t really have any authority to entrust with this job.

Seriously, Judge Wilson’s dissent is such a thorough and damning debunking that it even makes dry map-drawing engrossing.

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In any event, this must make the departure bittersweet for DiFiore, who ran the state system with distinction for years before turning in the deciding vote in an opinion that broke the state’s electoral process. Actually, to be fair, “further broke” the state’s electoral process since New York has always been notoriously bad at elections. Nonetheless, DiFiore will end up being defined by the last major decision she made:

Sen. Brad Hoylman (D-Manhattan), who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee, said while DiFiore is responsible for “administrative reforms” within the court system it is time for a change.

“It’s time for a new direction in our judicial branch,” he said. “As the Chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, I’m resolute that the Chief Judge’s replacement must be a jurist who will lead our Court of Appeals in a much-needed course correction that uplifts the vulnerable and ensures equity and justice for all.”

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Now state senators like Hoylman will get a chance to confirm the replacement for the judge who played havoc with their districts. Presumably they’ll be eager to hear from someone more in line with Judge Wilson’s take.

Joe Patrice is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search.

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Courts, Janet DiFiore