Friends, colleagues say both Wallace and Patterson are qualified for N.J. Supreme Court

They say two good people are being dragged into political firestorm

Governor Photos/Tim LarsenAnne Murray Patterson speaks after Governor Chris Christie announces her nomination to become an associate justice of the New Jersey Supreme Court at the Statehouse.TRENTON — Though both have spent decades in New Jersey’s legal world, John Wallace and Anne Patterson rarely crossed paths.

Wallace was a star high school athlete from South Jersey who spent almost two decades as a judge before being elevated to the state Supreme Court. Patterson is a top lawyer at a prominent North Jersey law firm who made her mark defending corporations from lawsuits. In 27 years as a lawyer, Patterson argued only one case before Wallace.

Last week, their lives suddenly intersected when Gov. Chris Christie announced he wanted to replace Wallace with Patterson. It ignited a fierce debate over the future of the Supreme Court, and angry Senate Democrats with the power to confirm or reject the governor’s nominees said they won’t grant Patterson a hearing.

People who know Patterson and Wallace say they are so well-qualified that in a less volatile time, the two could have easily sat on the court together — as intelligent, balanced, noncontroversial practitioners of the law.

Instead, their friends and observers say, two good people are being dragged into a political firestorm through no fault of their own. And both may end up distinguished by unwanted asterisks: Wallace the first sitting justice not renominated in the state’s modern era; Patterson the first nominee who may never even be considered for confirmation by the state Senate.

"They’re both wonderful people. And they’re both scarred by this fight," said former governor Brendan Byrne. "They’re two people with spotless reputations who are losing something."

Standing next to Christie at Monday’s Statehouse news conference, Patterson described her nomination to the Supreme Court as "the highest professional honor that I can imagine." A Trenton native who grew up in Princeton, Patterson graduated from Dartmouth College and went from Cornell Law School to a top New Jersey law firm: Riker Danzig in Morristown.

Leaders of the storied firm — which produced Marie Garibaldi, the court’s first female justice, and accepted former justices Stewart Pollock and Sidney Schreiber after they left the bench — said Patterson quickly stood out.

"The seniors know right away who are the lawyers that are really clicking," said John Sheridan, a former partner. "She was tagged as a star right from the get-go."

Sheridan said Patterson would sometimes talk about one day becoming a judge. She was briefly considered for the top court by the Corzine administration in 2006 when the Democratic governor nominated Republican Helen Hoens.

In 1989, Patterson left the firm for a short time to work at the Attorney General’s Office under her mentor Peter Perretti, and argued cases before the Supreme Court. "She was already a polished advocate," said Pollock, a justice at the time.

A dog lover who enjoys cross-country skiing and hiking, Patterson, 51, is deeply involved in New Jersey’s legal world. She’s married to another lawyer, James Patterson, and chairs a committee at the New Jersey Defense Association.

Lawyer set straight

J. Garfield DeMarco, a former businessman and Burlington County Republican official, said when Patterson represented him in a dispute with his brother, the other lawyer tried to get chummy, calling her "sweetie" and "honey" and "dear."

"She set him straight very quickly," DeMarco said. He said after the case ended and Patterson won, the opposing attorney told her, "I hope I never see you again."

At Riker Danzig, Patterson handled corporate litigation and defended against product liability lawsuits.

She successfully argued the manufacturer of an AIDS test was not responsible for a woman who contracted the virus from a blood transfusion. She represented malls trying to prevent activists from distributing leaflets inside the shopping centers. She helped Castrol win a false advertising claim in federal court after rival Pennzoil ran TV ads featuring Brett Favre. She represented Republican politicians who got former representative Bob Franks on the ballot to oppose Bret Schundler in the 2001 GOP gubernatorial primary.

A Republican, Patterson has donated $23,680 to the GOP — including many moderate candidates — and $2,000 to Democrats since 1993.

Christie said his decision to replace Wallace with Patterson is part of a plan to remove judicial activists from the Supreme Court. But legal experts say while her record as a lawyer can show her competence, it’s not a gauge of what kind of judge she’d make. "You can’t really predict what someone is going to be like once they get on the court," Pollock said. "It’s amazing how much you learn not only about the law, but the legal system and yourself."

There are some hints. People who know Patterson describe her as not only intelligent but very persuasive and outgoing.

"By pure intellect and personality, she’ll be a dominant force," Sheridan said.

Hard to categorize

DeMarco said her ideology can’t be neatly placed in a box.

"Anne is a very clear-thinking person," he said. "I think it’s going to be difficult to categorize her."

Seven years ago at his confirmation hearing, Wallace also declined to be categorized.

"I look at the issues. I look at the constitution. I look at the legislation," he told senators. "I apply law to the facts."

Christie, however, said Wallace, a Democrat, helped steer the court into judicial activism and replacing him is "a fulfillment of my promise to turn the court away from its history of using legal precedent to set social and tax policies." When asked which specific cases show Wallace to be an activist, Christie did not cite examples.

Wallace’s supporters say the justice, the court’s lone African-American whose term ends May 20, is being unfairly ousted after a sterling career. Legal experts describe him as a moderate firmly in the court’s mainstream. In the decision creating civil unions criticized by some conservatives, he agreed that gay couples deserve marriage rights but stopped short of requiring gay marriage. When the court determined e-mails between Gov. Jon Corzine and former union leader Carla Katz could be kept secret — a decision blasted by Republicans — Wallace did not participate in the case.

Attorney Alan Zegas, who reviews Wallace’s criminal law opinions for the New Jersey Law Journal, said Wallace is consistently thoughtful.

Of the 83 opinions he wrote for the majority, Zegas cites two examples of Wallace’s moderate standing: One, in February, when he said school administrators need only a reasonable suspicion to search a student’s car on school grounds, and another, six years ago, ruling against police who stopped and searched a suspect with a cigarette pack being used to transport drugs.

"You cannot predict what he will do," Zegas said. "To say he has taken the court in a certain direction reflects an ignorance of his body of work."

Today, Wallace supporters describe his rise to the court in almost tragic terms. Senate President Stephen Sweeney (D-Gloucester) says Wallace is a man "who has played by the rules his whole life." Because Christie is seeking to replace Wallace, a black justice, with a white lawyer, some African-American groups have called it a "slap in the face."

The youngest of four children, Wallace would sometimes help out his father at his family’s dry cleaning business. He played quarterback, second base and point guard at Pitman High School.

He graduated from the University of Delaware (Christie’s alma mater), then Harvard Law School. He married his teenage sweetheart and they have five children together. The family is involved in Democratic politics: his wife, Barbara, and his youngest son, Michael, worked for Corzine.

Wallace, 68, spent most of his legal career in judge’s robes: eight years as a Superior Court judge, 11 in the Appellate Division and seven on the Supreme Court. He’s been a Little League coach for four decades and a volunteer football coach for two. "Everything I know about him is that he has served ably, honorably and with distinction," Pollock said.

Tony Kurdzuk/The Star-LedgerN.J. Gov. Chris Christie announced Monday that he would not reappoint Supreme Court Justice John E. Wallace, Jr. for lifetime tenure on the state's highest court. Christie nominated lawyer Anne Murray Patterson to the Supreme Court.
Getting the news

On Monday, Christie went to Wallace’s office at the Richard J. Hughes Justice Complex in Trenton to tell him he won’t be renominated after serving seven years on the court.

Granting Wallace "lifetime" tenure would have allowed him to stay on the bench until he hit the mandatory retirement age of 70 on March 13, 2012. Sweeney said the denial of another term so angered Democrats that the Senate Judiciary Committee won’t hold any confirmation hearings before that 2012 retirement date.

Christie said he has nothing against Wallace personally, but said dropping him is a necessary step in his campaign to change the Supreme Court. Senate Democrats led by Sweeney have said similar things about Patterson — it’s not about blocking her, it’s about blocking Christie’s assault on judicial independence, they say.

Neither Wallace nor Patterson, both at the center of the storm, would comment. For now, they can only watch as politicians fight over the court’s future.

"It happens with judges a lot of the time. They’re caught in the middle," Byrne said. "They shouldn’t be in a fight."

Staff Writers Lisa Fleisher and Josh Margolin contributed to this report.