"THIS YEAR THERE WASN'T ANY ROOM"
After Nassau County Supreme Court Justice Geoffrey O'Connell failed to get a crucial Conservative Party cross endorsement for his upcoming reelection campaign, Newsday reports, he resorted to extreme measures: walking door to door for five weeks with 160 volunteers seeking 5,800 signatures for an extra ballot line he dubbed “And Justice for All.” A Republican, O'Connell had twice successfully campaigned with support from the Nassau County Conservative Party, whose endorsements at judicial nominating conventions are all but necessary for candidates running across Suffolk and Nassau County lines who are virtually unknown to voters. “In any other year he [O'Connell] might have been the candidate,” said Nassau Conservative Party leader Roger Bogsted, who opted to support Hempstead District Court Judge Vito DeStefano. “This year there wasn't any room.”      ~JS

THREE OF MINE FOR ONE OF YOURS 
Meanwhile, The Albany Times Union reports on the entire system at work within the Third Judicial District, where three Democratic sitting Supreme Court judges were cross-endorsed by Republicans to all but assure victory in November. By supporting Joseph C. Teresi of Albany County, George B. Ceresia of Rensselaer County and Christopher E. Cahill of Ulster County, Republicans expect that next year Democrats will return the favor when the seat of Republican Anthony J. Carpinello of Rensselaer County comes up. “My objective today was to keep on the bench all three very qualified individuals this year and one eminently qualified judge next year, and that is Judge Carpinello,” said Rensselaer County Republican Chairman Jack Casey after delegates to the GOP Judicial Nominating Convention endorsed the incumbents. Reading between the lines: Casey expects the U.S. Supreme Court, which is hearing arguments this week as to whether the current system is unconstitutional, won’t make any big changes to upend his calculated move.      ~JS

GPS TO ENTER TAXIS
Elsewhere, The New York Law Journal reports that Southern District Judge Richard M. Berman has rejected an attempt by city taxi drivers to prevent the implementation of GPS and credit card technology in the city’s 13,000 taxis, a move The New York Taxi Workers Alliance and eight drivers had called an invasion of privacy that will ruin route secrets. Berman wrote that the right to privacy is “not absolute” and can be overcome by “a sufficiently weighty government purpose.”       ~JS

ISIAH DOOMED BY "FRIENDLY GLANCE"?
Finally, The New York Post weighs in with an update from the Isiah Thomas sexual harassment trial, which went to the jury on Friday. The Post wonders whether the jury’s request that Southern District Judge Judge Gerard Lynch clarify wording on the verdict sheet — as well as one juror’s “friendly glance” at fired Knicks executive Anucha Browne Sanders — spells doom for Thomas.            ~JS

THE RUSSIANS ARE COMING! - OH, WAIT...
Cold War justice is alive and well and living at Ground Zero – or so hope lawyers for the city who will be using an esoteric 1951 law, the New York State Defense Emergency Act, to argue before Manhattan’s Second Circuit Court of Appeals that the city is not liable for illness related to Ground Zero workers’ exposure to toxins during the initial nine-month cleanup of the site. The New York Sun has the story. Enacted in case New York City ever suffered a catastrophic (read: nuclear) attack from our enemies to the east, the Act grants immunity from lawsuits to governments and companies who send workers in to respond and clean up. Southern District Court Judge Alvin Hellerstein ruled that while the act covers illness contracted by emergency responders who came to the site during and in the few days after the attack, as the emergency search and rescue operations turned into a drawn-out cleanup, it became subject to the laws governing regular work conditions. Lawyers for the city argue that, as response and cleanup from a nuclear attack would have been even more drawn out, the 1951 law applies to the process in its entirety. In the balance hangs an estimated $1.5 billion that the city could owe the 10,000 workers pressing charges.    ~LN