Buffalo-area Appellate Justice Shirley Troutman was nominated by Gov. Kathy Hochul to join the Court of Appeals.
Gov. Kathy Hochul holds a coronavirus news briefing Dec. 16, 2021, in the Red Room at the Capitol in Albany. (Will Waldron/Times Union)
ALBANY — Shirley Troutman, an Albany Law School graduate who has been a judge for nearly three decades, is poised to become the second Black woman to serve on the state’s highest court after a Senate judiciary panel on Tuesday unanimously recommended her for a vacancy on the Court of Appeals.
Troutman is scheduled to be in the Senate chamber on Wednesday when a vote on her appointment is expected to take place.
She told the Senate judiciary panel during a confirmation hearing Tuesday that as a trial judge in Erie County she believed the state’s court-appointed attorney system “did not always attract the best lawyers.”
“As a trial judge, I’ve had concern that sometimes the system, as it exists, did not always attract the best lawyers,” said Troutman, who is a state Supreme Court justice.
Troutman, a Buffalo-area justice who was nominated for a seat on the state’s highest court by Gov. Kathy Hochul, would fill the vacancy created by the retirement of Associate Justice Eugene Fahey.
It is Hochul’s first nomination for the Court of Appeals, whose other six justices, including Chief Justice Janet DiFiore, were all appointed by former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo.
Senators on both sides of the aisle praised — and congratulated — Troutman during Tuesday’s hearing.
Sen. Jamaal Bailey, a Bronx Democrat, had asked Troutman if she believed a shrinking number of judge-appointed attorneys for indigent people who cannot afford legal counsel was an indication of a lack of access to justice for the poor.
Troutman, 62, a Democrat who since 2016 has sat on the Appellate Division of state Supreme Court’s Fourth Department in Rochester, said that as an appellate justice she has observed court-appointed attorneys become overburdened by their caseloads due to a lack of resources. She said it was concerning because it impacted the liberty of their clients.
“Just because you are an indigent person doesn’t mean that you are simply entitled to counsel that is inadequate because the state is paying for it,” Troutman continued. “You’re entitled to the same type of counsel that provides diligence with respect to your rights as anyone else who is paying for it. So the assigned counsel program, it’s complex.”
She said when attorneys are overburdened, it affects them in ways that can lead to mental health issues, alcohol and substance abuse; that ultimately impacts their clients, who are often lower income people of color.
“And that’s not OK,” Troutman said, adding that she hopes something can be done to assure that the best and brightest are accepting court-assigned cases.
Troutman, once confirmed, will be only the second Black woman to sit on the Court of Appeals. Sheila Abdus-Salaam was the first Black woman appointed to the state’s highest court. Abdus-Salaam, who police said suffered from depression, died in 2017 at age 65 in what a medical examiner determined was a suicide.
Troutman previously served as a judge in Buffalo City Court and Erie County Court. She worked as a prosecutor in Erie County and as a litigator in the state attorney general’s office and for the U.S. Attorney’s office.
Troutman told the judiciary panel that after she graduated from Albany Law School in 1985, she was a military wife expected to “put my law degree in a drawer” and follow her then-husband around the globe. But while studying for the bar examination following the birth of her son, she received a call from her pastor, the Rev. Bennett W. Smith Sr., a civil rights leader. The clergyman told Troutman he had just had lunch with Erie County District Attorney Richard J. Arcara, who was concerned about the lack of racial diversity in his office.
At her pastor’s recommendation, she applied to Arcara’s office and was hired as one of two Black women in the office.
“For me, that call was life-changing,” she said, “because it resulted in me from going from one who feared the courtroom and had no desire to even enter a courtroom to one who truly loved the law.”
She said Arcara understands what she always has believed — that the justice system cannot achieve just results unless it is truly diverse at all levels.
Sen. Brad Hoylman, a Manhattan Democrat who chairs the Judiciary Committee, asked Troutman about a Fourth Department case in which she wrote the majority opinion in the reversal of a Syracuse-area judge’s decision to refuse “youthful offender” status for a teenager convicted of second-degree felony assault. Granting youthful offender or “Y.O.” status allows defendants between the ages of 16 and 19 to plead guilty, serve no more than four years behind bars and have their cases sealed.
In the case at issue, the defendant — an 18-year-old girl identified only as “Z.H.” — was threatened by another student on social media, which led her to carry a knife for protection at school. The next day, the student who made the threat confronted the defendant and punched the defendant in the neck. When the substitute teacher intervened, the defendant mistook the teacher for a second attacker and stabbed the teacher twice in the hand, causing a permanent injury, the decision said.
The victim, prosecutors and probation officials all asked Onondaga County Judge Stephen J. Dougherty to grant youthful offender status to the defendant, but he declined.
“The idea of youthful offender is it’s forward thinking,” Troutman said, noting it allows a youth to live a law-abiding life.
Robert Gavin covers state and federal courts, criminal justice issues and legal affairs for the Times Union. Contact him at [email protected].
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