NYS Supreme Court Judge Charles Wood
By Dan Murphy
“I am disheartened and angered by the attacks on Judge Charley Wood by WCLA Choice Matters. The reality is that Judge Wood is pro-choice. I urge women voting in the 9th judicial district to consider his excellent record on women’s issues.”
Robi Schlaff, former Vice-Chair of the Westchester Democratic Party’s Judicial Screening Committee
In December 2022, Hector LaSalle, the Presiding Justice of the Appellate Division, Second Department, was nominated by Governor Kathy Hochul to become the state’s first Latino Chief Judge of the Court of Appeals. Immediately, New York Focus published an article entitled “Hochul Picks Hector LaSalle for Chief Judge. Progressives Fear Return to Conservative Era.” That article was the first to articulate progressive opposition to Judge LaSalle, who ultimately became the first Chief Judge nominee to ever be rejected by the State Senate.
On April 5, 2023, New York Focus published an article that can be charitably called “unfavorable” against State Supreme Court Justice Charles Wood, who is running for re-election this year in the Ninth Judicial District. In the two months since that article ran, a newly formed progressive group called, “Citizens for a Democratic Judiciary” circulated a letter to the Westchester County Democratic Committee, calling for some nominee other than Wood. On June 1, the group issued a press release claiming that their letter was “signed by more than 1,000 local Democrats.” Lohud then published a story on June 5, which started, “Many candidates have to collect 1,000 signatures to get on the ballot in New York. That’s how many people have signed a petition trying to keep state Supreme Court Justice Charles Wood off it this year.”
But it turns out that Citizens for a Democratic Judiciary didn’t get anywhere near 1,000 online “signatures”—at least not valid ones. A quick review of the zip codes provided by signers, reveals that almost 1 in 5 of them live outside the 5 counties that comprise the Ninth Judicial District, including signers from Florida, Syracuse, Schenectady, Long Island, and at least 3 boroughs of New York City.
Jennifer Oelkers, who is the campaign manager for both Justice Wood and Justice Fran Connolly, who is also running for reelection, said, “This number reflects a very small minority of Westchester Democrats who either have been duped with false information into opposing Judge Wood, or who want activist judges who will ignore the law. Since March, they have regurgitated the same false attacks on a judge who has earned a stellar reputation with people who have actually met him and appeared in court before him.”
Oelkers pointed to the underlying petition of the group to prove her point: “It says, ‘Wood ruled in favor of Project Veritas and ordered the New York Times to destroy its research.’ That is just false. Judge Wood only ordered the return of the attorney client letters and the destruction of any copies that were made. So, they lied. On the Child Victims Act case, both this petition and earlier attacks both asserted, ‘Sexual assault survivors should not have to disclose their names publicly in order to seek justice.’ That’s an aspirational policy statement, not the law in New York State. Judge Wood followed the law, which is what judges are supposed to do. If this issue is real for them, and not just a tool to attack Judge Wood, then these activists should go to Albany to lobby the legislature and the Governor to change the law.”
The effort to cast doubt on Judge Wood as a democratic candidate seeking reelection this year has come in the form of numerous emails from the political action committee for the Westchester Coalition for Legal Abortion, WCLA-Choice Matters.
The emails cast doubt about Judge Wood’s views on abortion, but WCLA, nor its President Catherine Lederer-Plaskett, have found any decision by Judge Wood related to choice or abortion rights, and in fact Choice Matters, of which Lederer-Plaskett is also President, found Judge Wood pro-choice.
According to his colleagues and democratic friends, “Judge Wood has always been pro-choice.”
Here are some facts: In 2009, Judge Wood ran as a republican for State Supreme Court in the 9th Judicial District. During that campaign, WCLA labeled Wood anti-choice without interviewing him or finding out directly his personal views. So the claim that Wood was not pro-choice in 2009, is False; There is no proof, or statement, or comment to prove it.
But an old photo of Wood driving a motorcycle to law school in New York City gives us anecdotal proof that Wood has always been pro-choice. One sticker on his motorcycle is for NARAL, the National Association for the Repeal of Abortion Laws, NARAL, now called pro-choice America.
After becoming a registered Democrat during President Trump’s administration, Judge Wood is running for reelection this year.
Robi Schlaff, former Vice-Chair of the Westchester Democratic Party’s Judicial Screening Committee said, “I am disheartened and angered by the attacks on Judge Charley Wood by WCLA Choice Matters. The reality is that Judge Wood is pro-choice and as Chair of the 9th Judicial District Gender Fairness Committee, brought the leading international abortion rights lawyer to present to our committee. He is the number one judge on fairness and gender equity in the court system. I urge women voting in the 9th judicial district to consider his excellent record on women’s issues.”
Yonkers Democratic Chair Tom Meier said, “Judge Wood has always been pro-choice. He has been labeled to the contrary by other groups in an effort to discredit him. They want a preferred candidate that they have in mind. But we don’t blindly endorse incumbents. Judge Wood has been screened by the county democratic judicial committee and was found well qualified. Judge Wood has served the people honorably on the court for the 14 years and will do so for the next 14 years.”
The genesis of the progressive opposition to Judge Wood is somewhat revealing. Lederer-Plaskett and Shannon Powell , (Westchester Indivisible) both have ties to Veronica Hummel, who was appointed in July 2020 by Governor Cuomo, to the Court of Claims. Hummel’s last-minute appointment avoided a contested Democratic convention and gave the nomination to Alexandra Murphy, daughter of then Chief Judge Janet DiFiore, a close Cuomo ally.
Hummel, despite taking that appointment, went back to running for Supreme Court, in 2022 and 2023. In 2022, Hummel sought the nomination, but Democrats nominated 7 new candidates from Westchester, all of whom won. In 2023, Hummel ran to unseat either Wood or Connolly, despite having 15 years less judicial experience and less party support. She withdrew from the race in April, after she was not among the 10 candidates recommended by the Westchester County Democratic Judicial Screening Committee.
One reason why Hummel withdrew her name is that she was accused of violating judicial ethics when she tried to galvanize opposition to Wood.
Rising has obtained a copy of an email addressed by Veronica Hummel to Robi Schlaff, head of the Westchester County Office for Women in April, in which she made no mention of her own qualifications, but rather stated: “Similar with Janet DiFiore Difiore (sic) the party is debating giving a former Republican recently turned democratic (sic) the democratic nomination – Charley Wood. There has been quite a bit of push back by prochoice (sic) organization and journalists, but the issue is undecided.” Hummel then offered to forward articles to Schlaff, who immediately forwarded the email to Wood, with whom she has served on the court’s Committee on Gender Fairness for 15 years.
Wood then referred Hummel to the Commission on Judicial Conduct (CJC) for what appears to be a clear violation of judicial ethics. New York’s Code of Judicial Conduct requires a judge to maintain the dignity appropriate to judicial office and act “in a manner consistent with the impartiality, integrity, an independence of the judiciary.” It also prohibits a judge or candidate for judicial office from “publicly endorsing or publicly opposing (other than by running against) another candidate for public office.” Also, Opinion 12-129 of the Advisory Committee on Judicial Ethics states that each candidate should “take steps to make every effort to avoid misleading the public with mere speculation or innuendo.”
Retired Supreme Court Justice and Associate Justice of the Appellate Division, Jeffrey Cohen was the author of one of the decisions that was used against LaSalle in his Court of Appeals nomination. He described the experience of watching LaSalle come under fire over a decision: “The issue in that case had nothing to do with abortion. The issue was a subpoena. What the progressives did to Judge LaSalle then, and what they’re doing to Judge Wood now, goes against everything that we hold dear about the judiciary—that the judges decide cases honestly and competently, without fear or favor. It begs the question of why non-attorney progressive activists should have a role in the process of selecting judges. They would be the first to cry foul if right wing Republican activists were doing the same, but now that they had success once, they’re adopting a playbook that guarantees a politicized judiciary. Nobody, left, right, or center, should want that.”
All of this leaves Westchester County Democratic Chair Suzanne Berger with concerns about judicial races in the future. “We have two highly regarded incumbents running for reelection this year, and excellent candidates coming in the next few years. I expect that the candidates we nominate will win their election and become judges. As an attorney, having a competent and experienced judiciary is important to me. As the County Chair, having a diverse group of judges representing Democratic values and high ethical standards is important to me. The best way to accomplish both is for Westchester Democrats to advocate positively for the candidates they want to support, not to tear down the ones that they don’t. If we do so, issues like arose this year will not be a problem.”
The real problem that many in the Westchester legal community take offense at is the attempt to blur the lines between an independent judiciary and one political issue. The other concern is the attempt to discredit Judge Wood’s views on abortion by falsifying his record or what his view has been, for more than 30 years.
On the matter of switching political parties, we defer to NYS Democratic Chair Jay Jacobs who said “I come from the suburbs. Lots of people registered as Republicans when they grew up, because you couldn’t get a job as a lifeguard at the beach if you weren’t a Republican,” Jacobs said. “How a person acts in their political life, that I think is more determinative as to whether or not they truly are in principle, and in values, Democrats.”
So who will decide whether Judge Wood gets the democratic nomination? A Judicial Convention will be held this summer, with democratic party representation from Westchester, Rockland, Putnam, Dutchess, and Orange Counites to determine who is on the ballot in November.
