In New York’s Manhattan judicial district, there are technically 11 candidates running for the six open Supreme Court spots in the 2026 general election — but it’s only the six Democratic candidates who are running active campaigns, leaving them virtually unopposed.

The six Democratic candidates running for Supreme Court in November are Appellate Division, First Department Justices Saliann Scarpulla, Manuel Mendez and Shlomo Hagler, and Acting Supreme Court Justices Kathleen Waterman Marshall, Hasa Kingo and Christopher Chin, who will appear under the Democratic Party Line on the ballot.

The three First Department justices among those candidates are running for the Supreme Court positions in order to continue serving on the appellate courts. The other three acting Supreme Court justices are running to be elected to three vacancies on the Supreme Court on a more long-term basis after being designated or assigned to sit temporarily as acting Supreme Court justices. 

Then there are five Working Families Party candidates that Manhattanites will also see on their ballot, but a party spokesperson confirmed that they are all five “placeholder” candidates who are not actively running in campaigns.

Through quirks in the state’s system of maintaining ballot lines, WFP candidates Amy Taylor, Joshua Goldfein, Sienna Fontaine, Bob Cohen and Jeffrey Rizzo were nominated for other races in the state’s primary to give the Working Families Party the opportunity to consider running candidates in the general election.

The placeholders were then shifted over onto the judicial race later in the process, where they are unlikely to be a spoiler through a procedural tool.

For the six judges on the Democratic lines who are running for Supreme Court, amNY Law has compiled their biographical information for voters.

Saliann Scarpulla, Associate Justice of the Appellate Term, First Department

Scarpulla came to the appellate court from a wide breadth of trial court experience. 

Early in her career, Scarpulla worked in private litigation for Proskauer Rose Goetz & Mendelsohn, as senior counsel at the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, and as bank counsel before becoming a judge. 

She was elected to New York City Civil Court in 2001. She was first appointed to the State Supreme Court in 2009, where she was subsequently elected in 2012.  From 2014 to 2020, Justice Scarpulla sat in the New York County Commercial Division, where she was responsible for all international commercial arbitration matters pending in the Supreme Court. In 2020, Justice Scarpulla was appointed to the Appellate Division, First Department.

Scarpulla is also a prolific author of academic legal writing. She is a contributing author to the Commercial Litigation in New York State Courts treatise and has written extensively about technology and commercial litigation. She also has presented lectures at the Association of the Bar of the City of New York, the New York County Lawyers Association, the New York State Bar Association, the American Bar Association, the Practicing Law Institute, and the New York State Judicial Institute.

Shlomo Hagler, Additional Justice of Appellate Term, First Department

Hagler previously served from 2021 to 2025 as Presiding Justice of the Appellate Term, First Department, which hears appeals from the Civil and Criminal Courts of the City of New York. In 2025 he was appointed by Governor Kathy Hochul to serve as an additional justice in the Appellate Division, First Department.

Justice Hagler just took the role after serving as a fixture in New York’s judiciary since 1999. Hagler began on the bench as a Housing Court judge, and also served in civil court and the Supreme Court. He was elected to New York City Civil Court in 2003 and to the State Supreme Court in 2012. Notably, he created an innovative guardianship program that combined oversight for vulnerable individuals. He has been recognized with the Jewish Lawyers Guild’s Benjamin N. Cardozo Award for legal excellence.

Manuel J. Mendez, Associate Justice of the Appellate Division, First Department

Mendez has served on the New York State Supreme Court Appellate Division, First Department since he was initially appointed in 2020 by Gov. Andrew Cuomo. He was elevated to associate justice by Hochul earlier this year.

Mendez first joined the bench in 2003 when he was elected to the New York City Civil Court and presided over cases in the areas of Personal Injury, Medical Malpractice, Commercial Real Estate, No-Fault Insurance law, and Consumer Debt. Mendez was elected to the New York Supreme Court in 2012 and, beginning in 2018, served as the coordinating judge of the New York City Asbestos Litigation (NYCAL), in which he oversaw all toxic torts, product liability, and personal injury cases related to asbestos filed in New York City, 

He comes from a background as a former Bronx Legal Aid criminal defense attorney and private practitioner. 

Kathleen Waterman-Marshall, Acting Justice of the Supreme Court

Waterman-Marshall joined the bench in January 2019 when she was elected to the New York City Civil Court. She served as an Acting Family Court Judge in Kings County Family Court, where she presided over custody, family offense, child protective, and juvenile justice matters throughout the disruptions of the pandemic. 

She was then appointed to Supreme Court Justice status in New York County in 2021, where she began presiding over divorce cases involving delicate custody and complicated financial issues; Parentage Proceedings; complex “Junior Commercial” cases; and a wide variety of general civil lawsuits and jury trials.

Hasa Kingo, Acting Justice of the Supreme Court

Kingo came to the bench from a legal background, serving as an Assistant District Attorney at the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office from 2010 to 2014. He later served as an Assistant Attorney General in the Bureau of Consumer Frauds and Protection at the New York State Attorney General’s Office and as a court attorney to George Silver, then the Deputy Chief Administrative Judge for New York City Courts overseeing all the city’s trial courts. Kingo, who was born in Zimbabwe, has discussed the move his family made to the U.S. when he was young.

Kingo was elected to the New York City Civil Court bench in 2021 and became Acting Justice of the Supreme Court in 2024. 

Christopher Chin, Acting Justice of the Supreme Court

Coming from a trial background as a personal injury lawyer, Chin was originally appointed in 2022 as a New York City Civil Court judge, where he was designated as an acting criminal court judge in the Bronx. Chin was subsequently appointed an Acting Supreme Court Justice in 2025.

He worked as a private sector attorney for 20 years after earning his law degree from Brooklyn Law School.