Justice Virginia A. Long describes Supreme Court workings

Mercer Regional Chamber of Commerce gets an insider’s view

By: Lauren Otis
   EWING — Serving on the New Jersey Supreme Court is a responsibility which goes far beyond applying relevant law to the case at hand, Associate Justice Virginia A. Long told a luncheon gathering of the general membership of the Mercer Regional Chamber of Commerce in September.
   The state Supreme Court may be "at the top of the pyramid" of the court system, with the seven sitting justices wielding huge influence and power in the court system through their opinions, which constitute the final say on any number of issues, but "as one wag noted, we’re not last because we’re right, we are right because we are last," Justice Long said.
   In granting review, the state high court is purposefully taking on a case because it will serve a public purpose, enabling a conclusive examination of "general principles of law for the benefit and guidance of the community at large," Justice Long said, in her address at the Trenton Country Club.
   Whatever their personal differences and views, the seven Supreme Court justices take this sense of common purpose seriously, Justice Long said. "We don’t change the Supreme Court, it changes us," she said.
   Justice Long — who was appointed to replace Justice Alan B. Handler by Gov. Christine Todd Whitman in 1999 — said her "experience on the appellate court didn’t translate to the Supreme Court." As an appellate judge, her role was to "see what the law is, apply it to the case at hand and move on."
   Having handed down literally thousands of decisions on the appellate court level, Justice Long said she looked at the record of Justice Handler and noted that her predecessor wrote approximately 10 majority opinions per year. "I thought this is going to be easy," she said.
   But the significance of the cases the Supreme Court took on, involving weighty and difficult issues with important implications for New Jersey citizens and the need for careful consideration of each case soon put the workload of a Supreme Court justice in perspective for her, Justice Long said.
   Just deciding which cases to hear has grown far more daunting over the years, according to Justice Long. She said that last year there were approximately 1,300 petitions for certification before the state Supreme Court, while going back to the mid-20th century there were a tenth as many.
   Certain ground rules among the justices are always adhered to, Justice Long said. "We never discuss a case prior to oral arguments to maintain open mindedness," she said. And, for a week after oral arguments, there is no discussion of a case in order to give each justice an opportunity to think about the arguments made in a case on their own before proceeding, she added.
   Such ground rules, strictly followed by Chief Justice Deborah Poritz, help the decision-making process, but also maintain order, according to Justice Long. "It is a very opinionated group and (adhering to such rules) keeps the proceedings from becoming a free for all," she said.
   "We are a very collegial court," Justice Long said, but noted that significant and strong difference of opinion is certainly present in the justices’ deliberations. "It is the nature of what we do," she said.
   Even in agreement, different justices may have widely different conceptions of what should be contained in a written opinion, Justice Long said. Some believe a Supreme Court opinion should be clear and unambiguous while others may want to allow for the complexity and imprecision that they feel often goes with the issues that the court takes up, she noted. Some justices write for simplicity and clarity, others choose to fill their opinions with a range of legal, philosophical and rhetorical language, she said. "Reconciling those differences is a really difficult task," Justice Long said.
   Even so, all of the justices are committed to carrying on the work of the New Jersey Supreme Court as it was envisioned in the current state constitution, ratified in 1947, Justice Long said. Among the qualities it still adheres to are: "independence as far as humanly possible from outside influences;" the concept of "stare decisis," or adherence to legal precedent, while still understanding the need in certain cases to overturn precedent; reflecting not only the court’s but the legislature’s intent in opinions, while using "logic and common sense" when legislative intent in drafting a statute is ambiguous or unclear; understanding that sometimes the court needs "to declare the acts of another branch of government void" — something Justice Long said was not "judicial activism" on the part of the court but simply "poor delegation of legal authority" by other branches of government; to "acknowledge our mistakes and the wrong turns we have made" in the past, through more recent decisions; and maintaining an "overall spirit of progressiveness" which Justice Long defined as a willingness to deal with new issues and problems as they inevitably arose in an evolving society.
   Finally, Justice Long cited the high court’s ongoing approach to decision making which held a "consistent recognition and protection of the individual rights of our citizens."
   Justice Long delivered her remarks one day prior to Gov. Jon S. Corzine’s announcement that he had nominated Associate Justice James Zazzali to be chief justice following Chief Justice Deborah Portiz’s retirement, and had nominated state Appellate Division Judge Helen Hoens to ascend to the high court.
   Justice Long made no mention of the change in leadership, which was perhaps in keeping with her philosophy that the purpose and continuity of the court itself takes precedence over the personalities of any of those who have served on it. Justice Long said the state Supreme Court has no identity tied to the tenure of an individual chief justice: There is no such thing as a "Wilentz court" or a "Poritz court," she said, citing the names of two chief justices. Rather, the sitting justices understand that there is "a continuity of purpose that will bind us to our past and lead us to the future," she said.
   "That is the way it has been and the way it will always be, at least as I see it," she concluded.