TRENTON — Once again, the state Supreme Court has a new temporary justice. Chief Justice Stuart Rabner assigned Appellate Judge Dorothea O'C. Wefing to fill the spot on the bench vacated by Judge Edwin Stern, who turned 70 on Friday and reached the mandatory retirement age. The selection of Wefing, 68, who sits in Jersey City, was not a...
Judge Dorothea O'C. Wefing, pictured in a 2008 file photo, has been appointed to temporarily fill a vacancy on the New Jersey Supreme Court.TRENTON — Once again, the state Supreme Court has a new temporary justice.
Chief Justice Stuart Rabner assigned Appellate Judge Dorothea O'C. Wefing to fill the spot on the bench vacated by Judge Edwin Stern, who turned 70 on Friday and reached the mandatory retirement age.
The selection of Wefing, 68, who sits in Jersey City, was not a complete surprise. As the highest-ranking judge in the appellate division, she was first in line for a temporary assignment to the Supreme Court, just as Stern had been at the time he moved up.
"She’s a very smart, thoughtful judge," said former Supreme Court Justice Peter Verniero. "She has a very good reputation on the Appellate Division,’’ While on the bench, Verniero said he reviewed some of her decisions, which he observed "always struck me as well reasoned and well written, even if I didn’t always agree with them."
Rabner had temporarily elevated Stern to the state’s highest court last Sept. 8 after Gov. Chris Christie did not reappoint Justice John Wallace Jr. to the bench. As a result, Senate President Stephen Sweeney (D-Gloucester) refused to advance Christie’s nomination of Mendham attorney Anne Patterson to replace Stern.
It is unclear how long Wefing will be filling in, but Sweeney has said he does not want to replace Wallace until after the former justice would have reached the mandatory retirement age next March 13.
As it happens, that is the same month Justice Virginia Long also turns 70, which will leave Christie with two vacancies to fill.
Publicly critical of recent Supreme Court decisions about school financing, Christie has said he wants a court with justices who more closely share his views. While some lawyers have agreed with Christie philosophically, they have objected to what they say is an injection of politics into what should be an apolitical process.
Christie and Sweeney recently reached an agreement that cleared the way for the nomination of Anne Patterson to fill the vacancy of Justice Roberto Rivera-Soto, who has said he will not seek renomination when his term expires Sept. 1. The nomination of of Patterson, a products liability attorney, was approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee last week and is expected to go to the full Senate later this month.
Wefing has been in the appellate division since 1993. She became a Superior Court judge in 1984 and had been assigned to Hudson and Essex counties. Her newest assignment makes her the fourth woman currently sitting on the seven-member court.
In a separate order Friday, Rabner elevated Appellate Judge Ariel Rodriguez to acting presiding judge for administration of the Appellate Division to replace Wefing. And in another order, Rabner named Judge Carmen Messano the deputy presiding judge for administration of the Appellate Division.
Wefing, the wife of a Seton Hall Law School professor, John Wefing, has written a substantial number of decisions in her 18 years in the appellate division. In 2009, she wrote an opinion upholding the dismissal of Newark Councilwoman Dana Rone, who interfered with a traffic stop involving her nephew in 2006.
In 1995 she dissented with the majority of her colleagues in a ruling that allowed a lesbian in Bergen County to adopt the twins of her longtime live-in lover.
In 2007, she wrote an opinion saying the press and the public have to get advance approval from the state to conduct exit polling on Election Day and banning the distribution of leaflets within the 100-foot zone buffering polling places.
And in 2008 she joined with her colleagues in a ruling that said that in removing Social Security numbers from certain records that are sold, private interests trump the interests of private commercial enterprises looking to gather information to sell.
The Supreme Court is not hearing any cases on Monday, but Wefing is expected to be on the bench Tuesday when the justices hear arguments in a censure action against former Superior Court Judge Steven Perskie of Atlantic County.