As the era of Kaye comes to a close, Chief Judge Judith Kaye (don’t call her Judy) is eulogized by Jeffry Toobin in the New Yorker, the magazine for people from New Jersey who want to be cosmopolitan.  Despite having served as Chief Judge longer than anyone before her, her legacy is summed up in two words: Jury Duty.

One day in 1993, shortly after Judith S. Kaye became chief judge of New York’s highest court, she received a call from her daughter, who was on jury duty at the State Supreme Court, in Foley Square. “You know, Mom,” she said, “this is a great place to meet guys.” Strolling around that jury-assembly room the other day, Kaye paused, and deadpanned, “That’s when I immediately decided to upgrade the jury pool.”

While it’s not entirely clear, it would appear that the impetus for Judge Kaye’s focus was to improve the quality of people her daughter might meet, date, even marry, while on jury duty.  What mother doesn’t want the best for her child?

Back then, lawyers were exempt from jury duty, as were judges.  This may have taken a particularly tasty bite out of the jury pool, thus limiting the professional flavor of the men to be met. 

When Kaye became chief judge, New York granted exemptions from jury service to people in twenty-two different occupations—from doctors and lawyers to embalmers and the makers and users of prosthetic devices.

The end of exemptions was a very egalitarian move.  No longer were there swathes of New Yorkers who didn’t have to suffer the chairs and vending machines of the jury room.  Judge Kaye’s point was well intended, that there were no New Yorkers who were above the call of jury duty, so that the handful who lacked an Albany lobbyist to get them an exemption would no longer be second class citizens.  It was a very fair notion.

Kaye led a successful fight to abolish all exemptions; now everyone serves. As a result, a total of about six hundred and fifty thousand prospective jurors file, semi-voluntarily, into courtrooms around the state each year. With so many more jurors in the pool, citizens usually serve for a few days, rather than the two weeks that was common in the old days. Kaye’s reasons for promoting jury service range from the pragmatic (“We needed to show people, including the media, that the courts actually did work”) to the romantic (“The opportunity to sit in judgment of others is one of the great privileges of citizenship”).

At the time Judge Kaye began her quest, I thought it pointless.  Who, I wondered, would put a lawyer (no less a judge) on a jury?  As it turned out, over time lawyers found their way onto juries, and turned out not to be bad jurors in many cases.  Sure, their education and experience tended to be problematic, but there were lawyers, on juries, and the world continued to spin.  I can’t speak to the experience with embalmers.

Jury duty, or jury service as those who think it tastes better without the word “duty” attached, is a critical part of the court system.  I have no doubt that Judge Kaye’s focus improved the public perception to some extent, and certainly helped shorten it, at least in some parts of the state.  But what’s remarkable about Toobin’s article is that the legacy ends there.  Judge Kaye was deeply involved in trying to get pay raises for judges, but that never happened.  Even if it had, it would still fall under the heading of housekeeping, and hardly reflect much of a judicial legacy.

Judge Kaye, in person, is a every bit the dowager at age 70.  She carries herself with an air of great dignity, and is no doubt quite a remarkable woman.  She could win an argument with her stare alone.

I can’t help but think, however, how much better the State of New York would have been had her daughter been falsely accused or misidentified as a criminal, rather than called for jury duty in 1993.  Then, perhaps, Judge Kaye’s legacy would have been the continued development of New York’s independent constitutional jurisprudence extending the protection of individual civil rights and liberties in the face of collapsing federal law.  And Jeffrey Toobin might have written a longer eulogy.