Three state senators say Gov.-elect Mikie Sherrill is weighing whether to keep Corrections Commissioner Victoria Kuhn in her new administration, prompting the Senate Judiciary Committee to pull Kuhn’s Superior Court judgeship nomination from this morning’s agenda.
Gov. Phil Murphy nominated Kuhn to a judgeship in June. She has been tapped to succeed Judge Jeanne Covert, who retired early this year after two decades on the bench and five years as the assignment judge.
Kuhn inherited severe challenges at Corrections when Murphy picked her to lead the troubled department in January 2022. Eight months earlier, Commissioner of Corrections Marcus Hicks was forced to resign after an independent report found lapses in his management of the state’s only women’s prison
Hicks named Kuhn as his deputy chief of staff just five days before Murphy took office. She had previously served as an assistant Cumberland County prosecutor and deputy attorney general and was director of New Jersey’s Equal Employment Division and of the Office of Employee Relations.
She was a member of the Department of Corrections leadership on January 11-12, 2021 when guards at the Edna Mahan Correctional Facility severely beat a number of inmates during unapproved late-night cell extractions. Several corrections officers have been charged.
Murphy conducted a national search to find a replacement for Hicks but ultimately chose Kuhn, who had been acting commissioner, after watching her reform the department.
She became the first woman to hold the corrections cabinet post. Murphy and Kuhn had pledged to close Edna Mahan, and have broken ground on a new women’s prison in South Jersey.
Kuhn has cleared senatorial courtesy, and Murphy has not withdrawn her nomination. That means the Senate can consider her until the governor leaves office at noon on January 20, 2026.
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