Andrew Denney

Court system leaders announced on Wednesday that Queens Supreme Court Justice Michelle Johnson has been appointed as the administrative judge of the borough's trial courts, a role she has already held twice over the last three years in an interim capacity.

Albany Supreme Court Justice Roger McDonough ruled that defendant Gregory Thayer, who is serving a 25-year prison sentence for killing his best friend, would receive a new trial based on ineffective assistance of counsel

An attorney who has worked thousands of cases before the New York City Office of Administrative Trials and Hearings applauds the court's recent announcement to submit rulings from its trial division to the New York Law Journal for publication. But he says going further and publishing rulings from the court's appeals and hearing divisions would more accurately reflect OATH and how its decisions impact the average New Yorker.

As in previous years, we ask firm leaders a range of questions related to all of the most important issues law firms have faced over the last year

New York's court system is working with the Center for Justice Innovation to implementing a number of common-sense measures aimed at reducing case processing delays, including improving oversight of the discovery process, accelerating when pre-trial hearings occur, deploying court personnel to help resolve obstacles to case resolution, and establishing a formal protocol for conferencing cases and setting firm trial dates.

Johnson was also considered a suspect in the nonfatal 1994 shooting of rap legend Tupac Shakur in a Times Square office building, the Daily News reported. In 1996, Johnson appeared before Block, who was then in his second year on the federal bench, on charges stemming from gun-related robberies, including one from the previous year in which Johnson and an accomplice sexually assaulted a woman at gunpoint in her apartment after they forced their way looking for money and cocaine. A jury convicted Johnson of seven of the counts. "Mr. Johnson, you are a classic example of a person [who] has to be incapacitated so society is protected against you," Block thundered from the bench at Johnson's sentencing, according to court filings. "You have a violent history. You've spent a lot of time in jail, And, when you've been out of jail, you have visited all sorts of harm to the community." Block sentenced Johnson to five life sentences—three were mandated under the then-newly enacted federal "Three Strikes" rule, and Block used his discretion to mete out two more. But in a ruling issued on Thursday vacating the sentences and setting Johnson free under compassionate release, Block, now 90 years old, acknowledged that the times, and his mindset on sentencing, have changed. The sentence Block imposed on Johnson, while legally correct, was "excessively harsh," the judge said. "Just like prisoners who have evolved into better human beings during their lengthy periods of incarceration, judges also evolve with the passage of years on the bench," Block wrote. "When I sentenced Johnson in 1997, I had been a judge for only two years. But judges gain insights that with the passage of time only can come with experience on the bench and their judicial maturation." Mia Eisner-Grynberg, deputy attorney-in-charge of the Federal Defenders of New York's Brooklyn office and an attorney for Johnson, said that Block's heavy-handed sentence provided Johnson with time to "reflect and grow." "We are grateful for the humanity and the humility that Judge Block exercised in reconsidering Mr. Johnson's life sentence. Mr. Johnson's extraordinary rehabilitation in the face of a death-in-prison sentence is a testament to his character and reflects his growth and change." The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of New York, which opposed compassionate release for Johnson, declined to comment on Block's ruling. "Extraordinarily, for decades following the assault, torture, rape, threats, and intimidation he inflicted on the victim, the defendant continued to attack his victim's credibility in court in fruitless attempts to undo his conviction and sentence," Assistant U.S. Attorney Amanda Shami argued in an April filing opposing Johnson's release. "Given the defendant's conduct, including his history of continuing to attack the very woman he sexually violated, robbed, and intimidated, the purposes of sentencing—including punishment, deterrence, rehabilitation and protection of the public—would be undermined by the defendant's release from prison."

On Thursday, the New York Law Journal will publish a list of those who passed the exam.

Acting Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Hasa Kingo disagreed with the Law Department's argument that comments at issue in the lawsuit are not racist in nature and that they "speak to a deeply historical invidious racial animus."

Two of the judges who received the ratings told the New York Law Journal that they did not participate in the City Bar's evaluation process.

In a recent article and at his Oct. 23 speech at the New York City Bar Association, U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff of the Southern District of New York portrayed the U.S. Supreme Court as a relatively "conservative" branch of government that has long stood athwart progressive legislation.