Codey will lie in state at N.J. statehouse on January 22

Former Governor Richard J. Codey will lie in state at the New Jersey Statehouse in Trenton on Thursday, January 22, returning to the building where he spent fifty years as a member of the legislature.

A wake will be held at St. John Church in Orange on Friday, January 23, followed by a funeral mass at the Cathedral Basilica of the Sacred Heart in Newark on Saturday, January 24.   St. John’s was the Codey family church in Orange, near the funeral home his family owned, and where the future governor lived in an apartment upstairs.

Flags are expected to fly at half-staff in honor of Codey, who died on Sunday morning at age 79.  Gov. Phil Murphy will issue an executive order prior to leaving office on Tuesday. When former Gov. Jim Florio died in 2022, Murphy lowered the flags for two weeks.

Murphy is also expected to lower the flag in honor of Richard Zimmer, a former congressman who served in both houses of the New Jersey Legislature with Codey.  That’s expected to occur from Friday, January 16, until sunset on January 17, 2026.

Codey was elected to the State Assembly in 1973 at age 26, and to the State Senate in 1981.  He served as Senate President for eight years, and as Governor for fourteen months.  He retired from the Senate in 2023.