{"id":244399,"date":"2026-05-26T21:22:13","date_gmt":"2026-05-26T21:22:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/244399\/"},"modified":"2026-05-26T21:22:13","modified_gmt":"2026-05-26T21:22:13","slug":"new-york-court-of-appeals-hears-argument-in-case-to-end-age-cap-for-judges","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/244399\/","title":{"rendered":"New York Court of Appeals hears argument in case to end age cap for judges"},"content":{"rendered":"

A 77-year old retired New York state appellate court justice made the case on behalf of three other septuagenarian jurists in the state\u2019s highest appeals court<\/a> last week that the court system\u2019s mandatory retirement age of 76 is a form of civil rights discrimination.<\/p>\n

The state constitution requires Supreme Court justices to undergo an administrative capacity certification process beginning at age 70 and mandates retirement at age 76.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But since the state voters expanded civil rights protections in the state constitution in 2024, the judicial age cap is among the new legal conflicts to emerge from the change.<\/p>\n

The Equal Rights Amendment amended state constitutions to expand protections against discrimination based on ethnicity, national origin, age, disability, and sex.<\/p>\n

Three state Supreme Court justices \u2014 Robert J. Miller, Richard J. Montelione and Orlando Marrazzo, each on the cusp of mandatory certification or retirement \u2014 sued the state last year to have the retirement laws declared unenforceable, arguing they were impliedly repealed by the ERA.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The justices\u2019 attorney, John M. Leventhal, a retired Second Department Appellate Court justice, argued that the amendment and the state\u2019s retirement rules \u201ccan\u2019t be harmonized or reconciled\u201d before the Court of Appeals on Wednesday.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cOne forbids age discrimination. The other mandates it,\u201d he said. \u201cIf I may, the state does not want the court to reach whether the ERA is [a] self-executing, free-standing, stand-alone civil right and whether it is subject to strict scrutiny, as it knows that if you should reach it, it spells doom for their position.\u201d<\/p>\n

Miller and his fellow judges had also sought a preliminary injunction to stop the state from enforcing the age limits while the lawsuit was pending.\n<\/p>\n

Manhattan Supreme Court dismissed the suit last year, finding that its logical conclusion would make all age restriction laws are explicitly unconstitutional. In March, the Appellate Division, First Department upheld that decision that the ERA had not implicitly repealed the state constitution because the \u201cERA contains no reference to\u2026 the eligibility of persons to serve as judges or justices, or the judicial retirement age.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Legal representation for New York argued that serving as a judge is not a civil right.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n

\u201cI think what a civil right is\u2026 a right that appertains to a person by virtue of his citizenship in a state or community. Being a judge is something just very different,\u201d said the state\u2019s attorney, Ester Murdukhayeva.<\/p>\n

Interrogating the arguments that the three judges were making, the Associate Judge of the Court of Appeals Anthony Cannataro pushed back on the notion that the people of New York had consciously voted for the ERA with the understanding \u201cthat they were now eliminating a judge criteria.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt sounds astounding to make such an argument,\u201d he added.\n<\/p>\n

Cannataro was not the only one who seemed to approach the case with some credulity. Associate Judge Jenny Rivera said that, because there are no term limits for Supreme Court justices, the lawsuit would effectively enable lifetime appointments.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re basically arguing for lifetime appointments as long as you get for those who are elected, they get reelected, right?\u201d Rivera asked.\n<\/p>\n

Leventhal quibbled with the term lifetime appointment, but clarified that if a 78-year-old justice wants to run for another 14-year term, they should be able to.\u00a0<\/p>\n

At the end of the hearing, Leventhal took a moment to thank the judges and added a personal note.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m 77 years old, and I\u2019m still here,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A 77-year old retired New York state appellate court justice made the case on behalf of three other…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":244400,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[95461,95462,26426,95463,5108,26427,95464,95465,95466,40832,58359,9,1181,11,10,45631,95467,95468],"class_list":["post-244399","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-age-discrimination","tag-age-limits","tag-appellate-judges","tag-civil-rights-law","tag-constitutional-law","tag-court-of-appeals","tag-equal-rights-amendment","tag-judicial-reform","tag-judicial-retirement-age","tag-legal-challenge","tag-mandatory-retirement","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-courts","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news","tag-new-york-judiciary","tag-state-constitution","tag-supreme-court-justices"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244399","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=244399"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244399\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/244400"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=244399"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=244399"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=244399"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}