Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
Join NYSBA’s 118th President David Miranda each week as he interviews some of the biggest names in law and politics. Each week he discusses all things legal – and some that are not. You have the right to remain listening.
David Miranda:
Welcome to Miranda Warnings Roundtable, discussing legal issues and current events.
This week on Miranda Warnings Roundtable, we're going to talk about the Court of Appeals. For the first time in history, the New York State Senate has rejected a Governor's nominee for the Court of Appeals. Presiding Justice LaSalle was rejected by the Senate Judiciary Committee and later by the full Senate. What have we learned, Liz and Vin, from this experience?
Liz Benjamin:
It's so funny. He's like, "We're going to talk about the chief judge in the battle that's been..." And then he does this epic roundup of everything that's happened between the last time and now.
David Miranda:
Well, maybe someone's just tuning in. They don't know what happened.
Liz Benjamin:
What have we learned? We learned that like, holy crow, there's a constitutional crisis, and now what's great is everyone's like, "It's cool. We can go back and do the budget. We can all work together. It's fine. It's fine. We're all fine."
What have we learned? Ah.
David Miranda:
Well, let's start with the first-
Liz Benjamin:
From a political standpoint or from a policy standpoint?
From a policy standpoint, I'm not sure that we've learned all that terribly much at all, with the exception of the fact that no one has actually really, and I think that they seem content to not settle the debate over whether or not there needs to be... What it means to have a review of an appointment, of a gubernatorial appointment. Does it need to be committee? Does it need to be the full Senate?
A judge on Long Island opined there was probably some judge shopping that occurred. I can say that. I'm not sure that you all can. And this judge was sympathetic to the Republican standpoint that it actually did have to be a full chamber vote, but it was moot because the full chamber had voted the day before and voted him down. And so here we are. Oh, well.
David Miranda:
Well, let me just step in there for a minute because the judge didn't just opine. There was a lawsuit and the judge wrote a decision. There was-
Liz Benjamin:
Yeah, but who cares? Nobody's appealing it. Nobody's whatever. Is that going to be the precedent that we all now go forward based on this?
David Miranda:
Well, there was a question of whether it remained a viable issue. And according to the judge and the decision, it was viable because during the arguments, the representatives of the Senate said, "Look, we don't feel as though we ever have to bring it to the full Senate." And so the court considered that to be a continuing case in controversy.
So, we do have a decision. I think we did learn something from that. We have at least a Supreme Court decision that indicates that it does need to go to the full Senate.
Vin Bonventre:
Well, Judge Whalen, right?
David Miranda:
Right.
Vin Bonventre:
That's the trial court judge out on Long Island. He decided of course that the full Senate was the institution that was required to either confirm or reject the Governor's nominee for the Court of Appeals. And to be fair to the judge, I mean, that was the overwhelming consensus of legal scholars that had looked at the issue either because of the text or because of the history.
Now, whether or not that's still a viable issue, well, it is still a viable issue because it can arise again. However, there are some problems with the lawsuit that the appellate courts and especially the Court of Appeals might want to avoid. So the Court of Appeals, for example, if the case were ever to get there, has the discretion to say, "We're not going to hear this case because it is moot." As far as the dispute between these parties, that's moot because the full Senate did act.
However, there's the exception, as you well know, that if there is a controversy that is very likely to recur and to avoid disposition by the high court frequently, the court does have the discretion to then resolve the issue anyway, even though as between these two parties, it actually is moot.
Liz Benjamin:
I don't think this is ever going to occur again.
Vin Bonventre:
I don't think the appellate court's going to take it.
Liz Benjamin:
This is never going to occur again.
Vin Bonventre:
And Liz, you said nobody's appealing?
Liz Benjamin:
Well, thus far, they haven't. But I mean, I haven't seen... The Governor insists she had nothing to do with that lawsuit, but she was, I guess, ideologically simpatico with it. I don't want to talk out of turn. I haven't been following it every word, but I haven't seen what the Senate Republicans intend to do.
But again, I don't think we're ever going to get here again. I don't think this is ever going to happen again. I don't think anybody will be so stupid as to get us back to this point.
David Miranda:
The Senate Republicans wouldn't need to appeal because they won the case.
Liz Benjamin:
Oh, I'm sorry. Then it would have to be Senate Democrats.
David Miranda:
It would be the State Senate, and they've got 30 days to file an appeal.
Vin Bonventre:
That's right.
Liz Benjamin:
I don't think they'd have the Senate for it.
Vin Bonventre:
And the Senate Democrats don't want to appeal because it's very, very likely they would lose on appeal. The only thing-
Liz Benjamin:
Well, that's why they voted.
Vin Bonventre:
I'm sorry?
Liz Benjamin:
That's why they voted. They voted the day before this thing was in court because they knew they were going to get their clock cleaned.
Vin Bonventre:
Yeah, they were pretty sure they were going to lose.
David Miranda:
Well, they had the votes. Just like in the US Senate, if they get the votes, then they vote and they do what they want.
Vin Bonventre:
Can we talk about how disgusting the vote was? I mean, I don't want to be subtle about it because I think it was disgusting. And in fact, as somebody who's been a Democrat for a long, long, long, long, long, long time, I think it's a disgrace. I'm ashamed to be a Democrat for what they did.
I mean, you mean to tell me that in the entire Senate of New York state, there was only one Democrat that thought that Justice LaSalle was qualified to be the Chief Judge?
Liz Benjamin:
I couldn't believe they made him sit up there. He sat up there in the balcony. I mean, the whole thing was just distasteful. I don't want to say disgusting. I mean, whatever. It was politics and politics is-
Vin Bonventre:
Fine. I will. It was disgusting.
Liz Benjamin:
Okay, fine. I agree.
Vin Bonventre:
I mean, what are the odds that all these Democrats really thought that this man should not be the Chief Judge?
Liz Benjamin:
I don't know. You are questioning their motives and their thoughts? [inaudible 00:06:31] have those.
Vin Bonventre:
I am questioning their motives. They're like a bunch of sheep. They're like a bunch of sheep. They knew what their leadership wanted and that's what they did. That's why you like these people?
Liz Benjamin:
I don't know if this... Look, we've opined on this before. I mean, we could go down a really dark rabbit hole, which is like, this was really about retribution because the Democrats were angry that the former chief judge ruled the way she did or the court under her power, or control or auspices or leadership or whatever, ruled against them in the redistricting case. And then we ended up where we are because we have Republicans controlling the House and it was really New York's fault and blah, blah, blah.
I don't know any of this. Or you could say, "Well, Kathy Hochul didn't do what she needed to do in terms of outreach. And she had conversations and labor leaders"-
Vin Bonventre:
Well, that's true. That too.
Liz Benjamin:
It is. They said, "Anyone but this guy. We don't like this guy." And she was like, "Okay, this guy." Why? I don't understand why you would pick this fight. You knew where it was going to end up. Maybe you didn't know it was going to end up this far down the bottom of the ravine, but you knew it was going to get at least over the cliff.
We can go around and around on this one. The damage is already done. I'm not sure that it'll ever get undone. And now the question is, I mean, I don't know because we're in unchartered waters, unchartered shark-infested waters, I don't know how we proceed per se, because do we just resubmit the list plus a name that's not LaSalle's? And if that's the case, who the heck wants their name on that list actually? And then what do we do? And then we go through this whole song and dance again?
David Miranda:
Well, we have formally gone through the process and it's back in the commission, the Selection Commission's hands now to provide another list of seven. Six of those, six of the people are presumably in play still and could be back on the list again.
Vin Bonventre:
Could be back, could be back on the list.
Liz Benjamin:
If I were those people, I'd be like, "No, thank you. No, no, no. I'm good."
David Miranda:
Well, they could withdraw. But the other thing you have to think about is who is it that didn't apply a few months ago that saw this process and is saying, "You know what? I'd really like to be a part of this"? They had 41 applicants before. How many more do you think you're going to get? I don't think there's going to be a ton of new people coming out of the woodwork to apply for this spot.
Liz Benjamin:
Well, that's what is really sad about this, and this is another whole conversation that Vin and I have had a million times, which is the deterioration of the court, which used to have a significant reputation.
Vin Bonventre:
Absolutely.
Liz Benjamin:
I can do this by rote. Vin doesn't even need to talk. I'm just going to talk for Vin now for a while and Vin can nod his head.
David Miranda:
Well, let's not do Vin's greatest hits. Right?
Liz Benjamin:
No, I'm just kidding. No, but in all seriousness, given the deterioration of the court, given that some people would take that as a challenge and an opportunity to have a chance to remake it and reestablish its standing, maybe somebody will look at this, some sort of person with a great fortitude and character will look at this as an opportunity.
I don't know a lot of those people personally. I haven't spoken to any of them. But then again, I'm not running the Commission. But it certainly hasn't covered ourselves in glory. And it was a national story.
David Miranda:
Yeah. I think the bigger problem with how the court's going to be perceived is the politicization of it, right?
Liz Benjamin:
Right.
David Miranda:
And that's fully because of the Senate. I mean, the Senate, historically, we haven't acted like the US Senate when we're coming to putting people on the Supreme Court to our Court of Appeals. It was a much more higher level, thoughtful process that was much more, I think, respectful of the Governor's decisions. And that's out the window now. Now it's a political process.
Vin Bonventre:
Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Let's not talk about the past with nostalgia like it was so good.
David Miranda:
All right.
Vin Bonventre:
The Senate did nothing in the past, except for with regard to a couple of nominees. They did nothing. It was just a rubber stamp. But it's gotten worse than that because now we seem to be in New York in the same position the federal Senate is where, I mean, whether or not a senator votes to confirm or not is a purely partisan manner. I mean, I'm sorry. It is. It's shameful. It really is shameful. We really are, as Liz says, deteriorating the whole process. It really is.
I mean, do we really want the Court of Appeals to be more like the United States Supreme Court?
Liz Benjamin:
Well, but that was the exact argument, I think.
Vin Bonventre:
Where you have Democratic governors who are only going to be able to put up liberal judges. And then when you have a Republican governor who maybe has a Republican senate, he's only going to be able to put up some real conservative judge. And then you get the nonsense like we have at the United States Supreme Court.
Liz Benjamin:
Okay. But you're making the argument that effectively advocates made when they were rejecting LaSalle, which is to say, "Oh, we have a US Supreme Court that's gone off the rails in such a significant manner that we have to ensure that the state courts are sort of like the last word in progressive-whatever policies and progressive stalwart. And we have to ensure that we create a bulwark against whatever might get to the US Supreme Court."
So that was the argument, the very argument that they utilized to get us to this place that we are today.
Vin Bonventre:
No, I'm not. I am not. First of all, I agree with the Senate Democrats that the court needs to be turned around, but that doesn't mean that I would want the court to be composed of seven Ruth Bader Ginsburgs or seven Sonia Sotomayors, but I don't want it to be a right-wing court. I don't necessarily want it to be a left-wing court. I really would like to see some jurists on the court that really give a darn about the judicial role, actually have some sense of judicial philosophy. And that's the way they vote, which is not what's going on at the Supreme Court, except maybe for Kagan and Chief Justice Roberts. I don't want that to happen at the United States Supreme Court.
And I would hope that this Senate, even this one who rejected Justice LaSalle, that they would accept the nominee who isn't extremely liberal or isn't as progressive as they would like, but still would change the court because that nominee is a moderate liberal or even a moderate that would really change the direction of this court, straighten it out a bit.
Liz Benjamin:
So that's interesting though, and I just searched it and I can't find it.
So it seems that the Senate, at least, is interested now in really blurring the line between that traditional line that was so extreme. Remember... Well, I shouldn't say. Generally speaking, the judicial branch has been loathed to insert itself into disagreements that occur within the legislative and executive branches. But they did that when it came to Pataki v. Silver, for example.
However, this is also kind of a weird situation because OCA, the judicial branch, relies on the legislative branch to provide its funding. And so therefore there isn't actually... There's sort of a fungible wall, but you're also seeing increasingly the legislature interested in blurring that wall. And I'm all over the place with my metaphors here. I'm sorry, it's Friday. But they're proposing additional legislation related to monitoring or controlling or boxing in or limiting, what have you, the judiciary, which is interesting. And I can't find the specific-
Vin Bonventre:
And frightening.
Liz Benjamin:
Well, right. But again, I don't know how you fix this because as long as you have a judicial branch that waits on the legislative branch for its funding, I'm not necessarily sure how you divorce those two things. How the legislature doesn't say back to them, "Hey dudes, we pay your salary."
Vin Bonventre:
Look, if the leaders, legislative and executive, if they care about having a really good court, you'll get a really good court. If they really don't care about having a really good court, you're probably not going to have one. And I mean, it's just one of those things.
I think that with regard to Governor Hochul, I mean, she just showed her immaturity as being a governor. And by immaturity, I just mean that, I don't know, did she not realize what Albany politics were? I mean, before she decided to nominate Justice LaSalle, didn't she peak to the senators of her own party and get some kind of a consensus to either support this man or to choose somebody else? So, there's that. But she did pick somebody with a great deal of merit and the Senate rejected for whatever their actual reasons were.
I think now though, what's going to happen with the list? And I think David brought up some really interesting things about what additional applicants there might be.
I think there's also another really interesting possibility, and that is that some individuals might say, "I don't think there's any chance that the Senate will confirm me, so I'm not going to apply again." And that may even include a couple of individuals who were on the first list. For example, I don't think there's much of a chance that acting Chief Judge Anthony Cannataro could get past the Senate.
So I mean, maybe, maybe he might say to himself, "Why should I bother keeping my application in just so I could be humiliated like what they did to Justice LaSalle?" And the Justice Oing, the other one, for some reason, the progressives are after... Don't like Justice Oing, and maybe he might say the same thing. "I don't want to go through what they did to Justice LaSalle."
And then who? If that is the case, then we not only have now the LaSalle vacancy on the list, we might have more than one vacancy on the list. And then some of us, at least me, I could speak for myself, I hope that either Judge Rivera or Judge Wilson or Judge Troutman makes the list this time because I would love to see any one of those three as the Chief Judge.
David Miranda:
See, the problem Vin, that you're suggesting with respect to the ones that might not want to continue is that they're all judges and they all have a record, and they all have a judicial record that can be picked apart fairly or unfairly. In Judge LaSalle's case, it was picked apart, I believe, unfairly.
And so what are we going to have? We're going to have to have people that are on the list that don't have any judicial record so that they don't have something that can be picked apart? I mean, there's a number of people that were on the list before there weren't judges. We don't know how they would decide even a single case or how they decided a single case. And that is also, I think, even a scarier proposition.
Vin Bonventre:
Right. But you know-
Liz Benjamin:
So again, wait, hold on. So again, what we have established here, if we've established anything in terms of precedent, there's a legal precedent, but then there's a procedural precedent. We effectively have become, to your point... The confirmation, look, as someone who sat through any number of confirmation hearings at the Senate, even the Judiciary Committee, even for nominees that the senators didn't love on one side or the other-
Vin Bonventre:
You and me, Liz. Yeah.
Liz Benjamin:
Yeah. Okay. They were never really... I mean, this was prolonged. This was weeks and weeks of vetting, which is similar to what you see at the US Supreme Court. And then so are we really going to then subject every single nominee to this sort of exhaustive... Maybe we should. Maybe it's not a bad idea to subject a nominee to an exhaustive review of his, her or their legal interpretations and decisions and what not.
Vin Bonventre:
What's wrong with that?
David Miranda:
Nothing.
Liz Benjamin:
Nothing's wrong with that, but we haven't done it in the past, is what I'm saying.
Vin Bonventre:
We should be doing that.
Liz Benjamin:
We should.
Vin Bonventre:
But what we shouldn't be doing at the Senate Judiciary Committee is lying about somebody's record.
Liz Benjamin:
Well...
Vin Bonventre:
I mean, I don't think there was anything wrong with the vetting, but nothing I heard from his opponents suggested that he was anything they were saying he was. I mean, I think that's the problem. I want there to be more vetting.
But with regard to those three that I would hope would make the list this time, Again, Judges Rivera, Wilson or Troutman, their records, I think would be welcomed, will be embraced by the so-called progressive liberal Democrats in the Senate. They would just love them. So, they would get through.
I'm just not sure that Cannataro would get through and I don't think Oing would get through.
Liz Benjamin:
Well, look, I don't know that even Cannataro would want to get through at this point. I don't even know how this works. If there's an existing list of potential candidates and the list then subsequently gets re-upped, can you remove your name from the list?
Vin Bonventre:
Oh, sure.
David Miranda:
Yes, absolutely.
Vin Bonventre:
You can withdraw. It's a whole new process.
Liz Benjamin:
Okay. Well, that to me is more interesting than who's going to look at this and say, "No, thank you. I want my name removed. Even though you approved me and I was under consideration and I wanted this job at one point, I don't want this job anymore because it's too politicized and I don't want to put myself through that or my family or whoever."
Vin Bonventre:
Hey look, if I were a brilliant conservative judge who made the first list-
David Miranda:
And you're none of those things, you're none of those three. Right?
Vin Bonventre:
If I were a brilliant conservative judge-
Liz Benjamin:
I don't know. He has his flashes.
Vin Bonventre:
After having seen what LaSalle went through, I wouldn't want to be on the list. I wouldn't want to put up with that.
David Miranda:
You're a little judgy. That's true.
Liz Benjamin:
He's judgy and also brilliant. He has flashes of brilliance and also moments of-
David Miranda:
Yes, he is brilliant. Yes, he is. Clashes of-
Vin Bonventre:
No, not anymore. And I want-
Liz Benjamin:
It does, I think-
Vin Bonventre:
Let me throw... Can I throw another twist in here?
Liz Benjamin:
Oh, I can't wait to hear this. Sure, Vin.
Vin Bonventre:
I want to know whether the Commission is now going to consider who they could possibly get through the Senate. So the Commission itself, forget about the individual applicants may or may not want to be put through this, what about the Commission? Would the Commission and should the Commission take into account that the branch that confirms or rejects would almost certainly not accept this applicant, this applicant or the other? Should they take that into account?
David Miranda:
I don't think the Commission takes into account ideology.
Vin Bonventre:
Oh, lord. Oh, David.
David Miranda:
It's designed-
Vin Bonventre:
What do you want, a trip to Disney World?
David Miranda:
It's designed to be bipartisan, right? It's six-six, Republican and Democrats. So I don't know why we would expect that we're going to get someone on the far left of the liberal spectrum. When you have a commission that's designed to be half-Democrats and half-Republicans, you're going to get people, presumably, that are qualified and somewhat ideologically neutral. That's the way it's designed.
Liz Benjamin:
If you know an ideologically neutral person, I would like you to introduce them to me. I know no ideologically neutral humans. I don't know. Maybe I run in the wrong circles or something.
I would like to... Although right now, in interest of full disclosure, I am right now in Key West. I could go out there on the street and interview any number of people, many of whom are probably at this hour imbibing, and ask them about various different things. And I'm pretty certain that none of them would be ideologically neutral, perhaps vastly misinformed, but not ideologically neutral.
David Miranda:
As you know, a judge is entitled to have their own personal opinions but when they apply the law, they apply the law as it's written. They don't necessarily need to apply the law based upon what their predisposition is for a particular issue. And that's the kind of judge that you want. That's the kind of judge that you want.
Liz Benjamin:
That's originalist. That's very originalist, what you're saying.
David Miranda:
You want a judge that applies to law. I'm not saying-
Liz Benjamin:
Isn't that originalist?
David Miranda:
No, it's not an originalist-
Liz Benjamin:
I'm sorry, the judge who applies the law?
David Miranda:
Yeah.
Liz Benjamin:
Which law? What law? What version of the law?
David Miranda:
The law that's in front of you. I mean-
Vin Bonventre:
By the time the cases get up to the Court of Appeals or the Supreme Court, you could go either way on virtually any one of these cases.
Liz Benjamin:
Correct. That's correct.
Vin Bonventre:
But what David is absolutely correct on, we don't want a judge who happens to be politically liberal to then always be choosing the side that's liberal or one that's conservative. I mean, you want a judge, for example, like Felix Frankfurter, who was a very, very, very liberal Democrat, but that's not the way he voted and wrote his opinions on the Supreme Court.
The same thing with a Hugo Black or a Justice Jackson or John Marshall Harlan. I mean, these were great judges and they were great judges because despite their political and ideological leanings, they actually were judges who tried to do what judges are supposed to be doing. And boy, don't we want that on the Court of Appeals? I mean, that's what I want on the Court of Appeals and I'm a damn liberal, but I want a good judge on the court.
Am I the only one that wants a really good judge? I mean, other than David who thinks that judges just apply the law.
Liz Benjamin:
No, here's the problem. Okay, I find this debate... I think that the most true thing that has been said of all the things that have been said in this whatever, half-hour that we've been opining and blathering on, is by the time you get to the level of the bench that we're speaking of here, you really could go either way.
The reason that we get this high up is because the law is gray and the law is frequently drafted in that manner to be gray. Otherwise, why would we have legislatures that are constantly amending everything? So the precedent of which law, which precedent, whose version of the law, whose interpretation of the law? I mean, there is no black and white law unless you're Antonin Scalia, in which case there's one version and it's the Constitution and only what the drafters intended and doesn't take into into account anything like AI.
David Miranda:
Yeah, and then also only in certain cases when it suits his purposes.
Liz Benjamin:
Well, right. I just don't think that I would like to... What do I want? A good judge. What does that mean? A person who is willing to entertain all sides, a person who is willing to read both the existing literature on both sides, the dissenting opinions and the opinions that were written that actually carried a case.
To me, I want to be able to look at something. I listen to religious talk radio sometimes, conservative talk radio, the most conservative. I watch Fox News. I'm an independent. I consider myself probably a little bit more liberal than the average bear. I want to know what other people are saying. If you just talk to... If you have a judge who's just like, "I'm a progressive, I'm a progressive, I'm a progressive," that's an ideologue. I'm not interested in that. I'm interested in academic thinkers, open-minded individuals whose minds can be changed. I'm not sure that those people exist anymore, to be quite frank.
Vin Bonventre:
Well, I don't know. I mean, there are still people in the world who are wise.
Liz Benjamin:
Who want to be judges?
Vin Bonventre:
Who have a good deal of experience, who understand life, who understand the meaning of a free society and what's necessary. They understand rights and responsibilities. But unfortunately, that's not necessarily what we're getting most of the time on the high courts.
And I have to say, what Liz was just saying, her little dissertation was absolutely brilliant. It's exactly what Benjamin Cardozo and Oliver Wendell Holmes and Richard Posner and Justice Jackson and all the great ones have always said. By the time these cases get there, you got legal materials on both sides for crying out loud, you do want somebody who understands, somebody who's got wisdom and fundamental fairness, and they're going to decide the case based upon that because you could always find precedence or always find interpretations to support the way you want to go.
David Miranda:
Well, I think that's a good spot to end that discussion.
Vin Bonventre:
Why? Because I just said how brilliant Liz was?
David Miranda:
You said Liz was brilliant. But before we go, I've got something. I've got some viewer mail here, I'm going to call it.
Our good friend here, Vin Bonventre, has now been quoted as an expert on all these issues in the paper.
Vin Bonventre:
Oh, lord.
David Miranda:
And when you're an expert, then people take potshots at you too, right? So you are quoted in an article in the New York Law Journal, and then on Wednesday, someone wrote a letter to the editor mentioning Vin Bonventre's quotations.
The article was, "Will the Commission Tailor its Chief Judge Search to the Senate's Democratic Majority?" In the article, they describe acting Chief Judge Anthony Cannataro as part of a former so-called conservative block of four judges on the Court of Appeals. And the letter, which quotes Vin Bonventre, says, "This is grossly unfair to the Acting Chief, under whose leadership since September 1st, criminal defendants have rarely, if ever, been found a more receptive court."
And using some of Vin's old tricks, they use some stats. They say, "In the first seven months of 2022, the Court decided 23 criminal appeals and there were dissents in 10, 43.5%. And since October, the Court decided 13 criminal appeals, only two dissents, 15%." And their conclusion is, "Acting Chief Judge Cannataro has brought about a welcome consensus amongst the judges."
Liz Benjamin:
Are we really going here? Are we really going to say that actually, you can bring judicial...
Vin Bonventre:
Harmony?
Liz Benjamin:
Efficacy of a bench down to the numbers? It's a numbers game now, is what we're saying? That's interesting.
David Miranda:
Well, Vin has made ample use of empirical data to support his position.
Liz Benjamin:
In your face, Bonventre. In your face.
Vin Bonventre:
Heck no.
David Miranda:
And now there's some numbers that apparently dispute some things that you're saying.
Vin Bonventre:
I would hope that the letter writer is being accurate, but that has nothing to do with whether Judge Anthony Cannataro was part of that four-judge conservative block. You don't have that four-judge conservative block anymore because Chief Judge Janet DiFiore isn't there anymore. It's a different court right now. There are different dynamics right now.
So God bless Anthony Cannataro. Hey, I like the guy. My correspondence with him has been wonderful. He's another Sicilian-American like me. I like the guy and I hope he's great. I hope he's absolutely great, but his record while Janet DiFiore was Chief Judge was certainly pretty darn conservative, which is not a good thing or a bad thing, it just is.
David Miranda:
Well, we'll revisit the numbers, Vin.
Vin Bonventre:
Absolutely.
David Miranda:
And we'll put that into the formula and then we'll reconsider all of this very soon.
So Vin and Liz, thank you very much as always.
Vin Bonventre:
Thank you.
Liz Benjamin:
Thank you.
David Miranda:
For your insights and the brilliance of both of you, thank you both.
This has been Miranda Warnings, a New York State Bar Association podcast. You have the right to subscribe, rate, and review.