Senate Bill S3849

                                 
BILL NUMBER: S3849

SPONSOR: HOYLMAN-SIGAL
 
TITLE OF BILL:

CONCURRENT RESOLUTION OF THE SENATE AND ASSEMBLY proposing amendments to
article 6 of the constitution, in relation to the number of supreme
court justices in any judicial district

 
PURPOSE OR GENERAL IDEA OF BILL:

The act would remove the current constitutional limitation on the number
of Supreme Court justices, allowing the legislature to set the number of
justices, as they can for every other court.

 
SUMMARY OF PROVISIONS:

Section 1 - Removes the constitutional cap on the number of judges in a
given judicial district Section 2 - Establishes the effective date

 
JUSTIFICATION:
              

New York's court system is demonstrably and impossibly backlogged. A
common-sense solution would be to add more judges to overburdened
courts, but an archaic provision of the New York State Constitution
arbitrarily caps the number of legislatively authorized Supreme Court
seats at one justice per 50,000 people in each judicial district.
However, the number of cases processed by New York courts annually has
tripled since the cap was last amended in the early 1960s, and liti-
gation has become more time-consuming and complex. State Supreme Courts
in The Bronx, Manhattan, and the Capital District are currently at their
constitutionally-capped number of justices and Queens, Brooklyn, and
Staten Island are close, meaning the Legislature is powerless to create
additional judicial seats to meet the ever-growing backlog of cases. The
judicial backlog emanating from the constitutional cap leads to substan-
tial delays in the administration of justice, not to mention increased
costs and agony for litigants. Worse, as a stopgap measure to ensure the
functioning of courts in capped districts, judges are designated from
other courts to hear cases on an acting basis, reducing both expertise
and judicial capacity elsewhere in the state.

The Uncap Justice Act would simply strike the constitutional cap on the
number of Supreme Court justices. It does not increase the number of
judges in any judicial district, but instead gives the legislature the
flexibility to enact legislation as needed in order to deliberately and
appropriately create new seats in state Supreme Court districts where
the need is greatest, similar to how the Legislature creates judicial
seats for every other state trial court. The people of New York State
are entitled to a modern, flexible, evidence-based method of assessing
the state's judicial needs, as is the case in many other states and the
federal judiciary. Until this bill is passed and the cap is removed, New
Yorkers will be barred from the justice they so desperately seek in our
Supreme Court. While other reforms are also necessary, this amendment is
vital - and long overdue.

 
PRIOR LEGISLATIVE HISTORY:

2023-2024: A5366/S5414 - Passed Assembly and Senate

 
FISCAL IMPLICATIONS FOR STATE AND LOCAL GOVERNMENTS:

None.

 
EFFECTIVE DATE:
The foregoing amendments be submitted to the people for approval at the
general election to be held in the year 2026 in accordance with the
provisions of the election law.