Meeks makes recommendations for Supreme Court judge

Rep. Gregory Meeks, who chairs the Queens County Democratic Party, has made his six Queens Supreme Court judge recommendations to the party’s judicial delegates. Eagle file photo by Andy Katz

By Jacob Kaye

The Queens County Democratic Party’s judicial convention will convene Thursday evening to officially nominate judges to run on the party’s line in the 2021 election for six open bench seats in Queens Supreme Court.

Queens County Criminal Court Judges Karen Gopee and David Kirschner, and Queens County Civil Court Judges Michele Titus and Laurentina McKetney Butler have all received recommendations to be nominated by Rep. Gregory Meeks, the party’s chairperson, according to a representative from the Queens County Democratic Party.

Current Supreme Court Justices Kenneth Holder and Denis Butler, both of whom have reached the end of their 14-year terms on the bench, have also received Meeks’ recommendation to serve another term.

Meeks’ office did not respond to request for comment.

Supreme Court justices, unlike Civil Court judges, do not run in a primary. Instead, they are nominated by the party to run in the general election in November.

Learn more about the process here.

On Thursday, the nearly 180 elected judicial delegates will meet at Antun’s catering hall in Queens Village at 6 p.m., to vote on whether or not to nominate the chair’s recommended judges.

It’s no surprise that those recommended are all sitting judges. With the exception of now-Queens Supreme Court Judge Wyatt Gibbons’ nomination to the party line in 2019, the party rarely recommends people to the bench who don’t already possess experience as a judge.

The recommended judges, and others who were not recommended, met with Meeks in the past to plead their case as to why they should be elected to the Supreme Court.

The Queens County Republican Party will also soon nominate judges to their party’s line to run in November. Republican Party leadership is currently in discussion with judicial prospects and is expecting to host its judicial convention in the coming month, according to the party’s chair, Joann Ariola.

One of the six vacancies in Queens Supreme Court is a result of a recently passed law that expands the number of Supreme Court justices in nearly every judicial district in the state.

Queens will now be allotted 42 justices, as per the law.

“I'm very happy that Queens County will have a new Supreme Court justice,” said Queens Supreme Court Justice Carmen Velasquez, who also serves as the president of the Association of Supreme Court Justices of the State of New York. “Queens residents will have the opportunity to have more cases being done and for the Queens judiciary to grow because we will have a new member coming in to help us with the backlogs of the Supreme Court.”

“It's really an exciting moment for not only Queens, but for a lot of the districts who are getting one more judge,” she added.

Queens County Bar Association President Frank Bruno said that he is looking forward to adding more diversity to the bench in Queens. Last year, Holder became the only Black man on the bench in Queens Supreme Court, Criminal Term, despite the fact that well over 50 percent of people sentenced were Black. 

“I support diversity through the submission of qualified candidates for office,” Bruno said. “I support an open and progressive bench irrespective of political beliefs or ideology. Jurists comprised of people that look, feel and act like the community of Queens that are looking to dispense justice appropriately and fairly to all that come before them.”

There was at least one missed opportunity to bulk up diversity on the bench with the recent announcement of the nominations.

Attorney Michael Goldman, who recently lost the race for Civil Court in Queens, told the Eagle last week that he had submitted his name for the party’s nomination to Supreme Court.

Had he been nominated and elected, Goldman would have become the first out LGBTQ judge on the Supreme Court bench in Queens.

Learn more about the judges who received Meeks’ recommendation to be nominated to the party’s line in November below.

Judge Karen Gopee

Gopee was first appointed to the Criminal Court bench by Mayor Bill de Blasio in 2015.

The judge became the first-ever Indo-Carribean person to serve as a judge in New York State and she would also become the first to serve in New York Supreme Court if elected.

Gopee’s Queens roots run strong – she received her law degree at St. John’s University School of Law in 1997.

For seven years, Gopee worked in the Brooklyn District Attorney’s office. She went on to serve as Judge Alex M. Calabrese’s principal court attorney until her appointment to the bench.

Gopee is the president of the South Asian and Indo-Caribbean Bar Association of Queens.

Judge David Kirschner

Kirschner was appointed to serve as an interim judge in Bronx County Civil Court by de Blasio in 2016. The mayor appointed him to Criminal Court a year later.

Prior to becoming a judge, Kirschner worked in the Bronx County District Attorney’s office as an assistant district attorney from 1989 to 1993.

He went on to run a solo practice as an attorney before returning to the DA’s office in 1999.

In 2007, Kirschner worked as a principal law clerk to Judges Lawrence H. Bernstein and Richard Lee Price from 2007 to 2008, and 2009 to 2016 respectively.

Kirschner is a member of the Queens County Bar Association, the Jewish Lawyers Guild and the Association of Criminal Court Judges among other organizations.

Civil Court Judge Michele Titus. AP file photo by Hans Pennink

Judge Michele Titus

A former assembly member in District 31, Titus was elected to serve as a Civil Court judge in 2019 and assumed her seat on the bench in January 2020.

Prior to being elected to the Assembly in 2002, Titus worked as an attorney in the Queens County District Attorney’s office and served as the chief of staff for former-State Senator Ada Smith.

Titus has also worked as an attorney for the New York City Board of Education and the New York State Attorney General’s office.

Born in Queens, Titus attended undergrad at SUNY Binghamton and got her law degree at Albany Law School.

Judge Laurentina McKetney Butler

McKetney Butler was elected to Queens County Civil Court in 2015.

Before being elected, she worked as a principal law clerk in New York State Supreme Court from 2005 until 2013. McKetney Butler also served as a court attorney in the Civil Court of the City of New York from 2001 until 2012.

She received her law degree at New York Law School in 1994.

Queens Supreme Court Justice Kenneth Holder. File photo courtesy of Holder

Justice Kenneth Holder

Holder, who has reached the end of his first 14-year term on the bench and currently serves in Queens Supreme Court, Criminal Term, was first elected to Supreme Court in 2008.

Prior to his election, he was elected to Queens Civil Court in 2006 but immediately assigned to Kings County Criminal Court.

Holder was one of the advocates for the Queens Treatment Court, which he helped establish in 1998 when he was working in the Queens district attorney’s office in the narcotics bureau.

Holder, who was born in London and has lived in Jamaica, Canada, Brooklyn and Queens, attended undergrad at Lincoln University, the oldest historically black college in the U.S.

He received his law degree from the University of Toledo College of Law.

Justice Denis Butler

Butler, who like Holder has reached the end of his 14-year term as a Queens Supreme Court justice, was first elected to the court in 2008.

Prior to the Supreme Court, Butler served in the New York City Civil Court, Queens County – he was elected to the bench in 2002.

He spent the early part of his career working as a principal law clerk for Civil Court Judge Robert Kohm, Supreme Court Judge Robert Groh, Surrogate’s Court Judge Robert Nahman and Supreme Court Judge Timothy Flaherty.

Butler currently serves in the Civil Term and received his law degree at Fordham University, where he also earned his bachelor’s degree.