Michael Noriega confirmed by Senate, becoming first public defender on Supreme Court

Michael Noriega was confirmed by the State Senate today to a seat on the New Jersey Supreme Court, becoming the third Latino and the first former public defender to ever serve on the state’s highest court. The vote was unanimous, 37-0.

Gov. Phil Murphy nominated Noriega to the court on May 15, nearly a year after the justice who previously held the seat, Barry Albin, reached the mandatory retirement age of 70. Like Albin, Noriega is a Democrat, and is expected to join the court’s liberal-leaning bloc.

But that didn’t stop Republican senators from singing Noriega’s praises and supporting his nomination. From the moment Murphy unveiled Noriega as his choice for the court, senators from both parties sounded highly supportive of the nomination, and Noriega was unanimously approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee on Monday after only light questioning.

“Michael Noriega will be an excellent addition to the Supreme Court,” Senate President Nick Scutari (D-Linden) said in a statement released immediately after today’s vote was held. “Mr. Noriega has extensive experience representing clients in the courtroom as a private attorney and has served with distinction as a public defender. He also possesses the human qualities of compassion and understanding that can be important in the Court’s decisions.”

Noriega currently works as a criminal and immigration attorney at the law firm run by State Sen. Jon Bramnick (R-Westfield), and he also spent six years running his own firm. But it was seemingly his five-year stint as a public defender in Essex County, from 2003 to 2008, that sold the Murphy administration on the idea of making him a Supreme Court justice.

“I think if you’re looking at a seven-member body, you really want a court that reflects the totality of the legal profession,” Murphy’s chief counsel Parimal Garg told Bolts, a criminal justice-focused publication. “It’s a recognition of the fact that, if you spent a large part of your career as a public defender, you’re going to have a very different perspective on the criminal justice system than if you had spent the majority of your career as a prosecutor.”

Noriega is Murphy’s fourth nominee to the Supreme Court, and the third confirmed on a unanimous vote. Justice Fabiana Pierre-Louis, a Democrat nominated in 2020, and Justice Douglas Fasciale, a Republican nominated in 2022, both similarly passed with universal support after an efficient process.

The lone troublesome nomination was that of Justice Rachel Wainer Apter, who was picked by Murphy in March 2021 but wasn’t confirmed until October 2022; she passed the Senate as a joint judicial package with Fasciale. Like Noriega, Wainer Apter is a liberal-leaning Democrat, but her past work in progressive advocacy circles gave Republican senators pause.

Wainer Apter’s long-stalled nomination created a larger vacancy issue on the court, with the governor and the legislature entering something of a stalemate for most of 2022. For a few months in the summer and fall last year, the court had only four permanent members, with the other three seats all filled by temporarily elevated Superior Court judges.

With Noriega’s confirmation, however, that era is now officially over; for the first time since former Justice Jaynee LaVecchia departed in December 2021, the court will soon have a full complement of seven Senate-confirmed justices.

Murphy has now selected a majority of the court, and he’ll likely get one more opportunity to make his mark before he’s term-limited out of office: Justice Lee Solomon, a Republican, will turn 70 in August 2024, allowing Murphy to choose his replacement. That replacement will almost certainly be a Republican, assuming Murphy obeys the longstanding tradition in New Jersey to maintain approximate partisan balance on the Supreme Court.

The governor will also have the opportunity to further diversify the court, which has been a top priority for his administration. Murphy put the first-ever Black woman on the court in Pierre-Louis and maintained Hispanic representation with Noriega; for his final nominee, he may take the opportunity to give New Jersey its first Asian American justice.

In the meantime, the court is still delivering decisions from its 2022-2023 session, and the 45-year-old Noriega will join his new colleagues in September for their 2023-2024 session. If he chooses to stay on the court until he’s required by law to retire, Justice Noriega will have 25 years ahead of him.