Hector LaSalle was unsuccessfully nominated by Governor Kathy Hochul to serve as chief judge of the New York Court of Appeals, the state's highest court.
13 Facts About Hector LaSalle
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Hector LaSalle earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from Pennsylvania State University in 1990 and a Juris Doctor from the University of Michigan Law School in 1993.
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Hector LaSalle served as an assistant district attorney in the Suffolk County District Attorney's office from 1993 to 1998 and as deputy bureau chief of the office's Special Investigation Bureau from 2002 to 2008.
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In 2021, Governor Andrew Cuomo nominated Hector LaSalle to serve as the presiding judge of the New York State Supreme Court, Appellate Division, Second Department.
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In 2022, Hector LaSalle's name was on a list of seven candidates to replace Janet DiFiore as chief judge of the New York Court of Appeals the state's highest judicial position, from a list of candidates, all of whom had applied for the job, chosen by the state's Commission on Judicial Nominations.
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Hector LaSalle's nomination faced substantial opposition from more than a dozen Democratic members of the state senate, labor unions, civil rights groups, the Manhattan Democratic Party, and other Democratic-aligned advocacy groups and organizations, who have criticized Hector LaSalle's record on abortion, labor, and criminal justice cases.
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Some state's major unions, such as the Public Employees Federation, which represents white-collar workers in state government, and the city's Transit Workers Union, criticized their fellow unions' opposition and, without endorsing Hector LaSalle, called for him to receive a full Senate vote.
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The move was described as routine housekeeping, but Hector LaSalle's supporters noted that some of the Democrats newly assigned to the committee, like Jessica Ramos, had already declared their opposition to Hector LaSalle.
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Hector LaSalle had joined a short unanimous opinion that held a black defendant was not prejudiced by the court granting the prosecutor's peremptory challenge striking all dark-skinned jurors from the pool regardless of race, a decision ultimately reversed by the Court of Appeals on the grounds that the state constitution specifically bars discrimination on the basis of color as well as race.
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Hoylman-Sigal noted that Hector LaSalle had joined 5,700 decisions as an appellate judge and personally authored six decisions.
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Two of Hector LaSalle's cases were reversed by the Court of Appeals.
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Hoylman-Sigal noted that Hector LaSalle had left certain portions of his application for the position incomplete.
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Lastly, he believed that the backlash Hector LaSalle had provoked made him unlikely to be able to unite a fractious court whose members were openly attacking each other in opinions.