Patterson turns 67, and Sherrill has three years to pick a Supreme Court Justice

New Jersey Supreme Court Justice Anne M. Patterson turns 67 today — a milestone that quietly starts the clock for Gov. Mikie Sherrill, who now has three years to choose her successor before Patterson hits the state’s mandatory retirement age in April 2029.

Barring an unexpected vacancy, Patterson is next in line – and, unless she wins re-election in 2029 – likely Sherrill’s only original Supreme Court pick.  The winner of the next gubernatorial election names a new chief justice when Stuart Rabner turns 70 in 2030, and fills another seat four months later when Douglas Fasciale reaches retirement age.

As Gov. Mikie Sherrill begins building an internal framework to vet candidates for Patterson’s seat, several baseline assumptions might exist:

Patterson is a Republican, and Sherrill will likely name a Republican.  During last year’s campaign, Sherrill committed to upholding the historic tradition of a partisan balance on the Supreme Court.  But she included a requirement that her Supreme Court picks support abortion rights.

Sherrill is unlikely to reduce the current gender makeup of the Supreme Court. That means the governor is expected to look primarily at women candidates to succeed Patterson.  The top court now has four men and three women, and some people close to Sherrill acknowledge that would be unlikely to change that to five men and two women.

Takeaway: Expect Sherrill to nominate a Republican woman to replace Patterson.

Patterson has the option of retiring eight months early so that a new justice can be appointed in time to begin the new Court term on September 1, 2028.  That would also allow Sherrill to move her nominee through the Senate confirmation process before her re-election year.

In 2020, Justice Walter Timpone retired two months before his 70th birthday so that Fabiana Pierre-Louis could be in place by the opening day of the 2020-21 Court session.

Here’s one more option: for a woman who wants to be a Supreme Court justice in three years, now would be a great time to switch parties and become a Republican.  Three years is enough to pass the laugh test of party affiliation and could offer an alternate path to the top court.

The State Constitution gives Sherrill three additional first-term nominations when three justices named by former Gov. Phil Murphy are up for tenure: Fabiana Pierre-Louis in 2027, and Rachel Wainer Apter and Douglas Fasciale in 2029.   Pierre-Louis and Wainer Apter are Democrats, and Sherrill is expected to support their renominations to tenured seats. (Sherrill publicly supported Pierre-Louis the day after Murphy announced her nomination.)  Fasciale, a Republican, will be 69 when he’s up for tenure in October 2029, just weeks before the next gubernatorial election; denying him a final year, if he wants it, could be dicey for Sherrill.

The Short List

A New Jersey Globe short list of potential candidates – all women affiliated with the Republican Party – to replace Patterson includes:

* Former First Assistant U.S. Attorney Desiree Grace, 37, spent nearly a decade as a federal prosecutor.  She was selected by federal judges to become U.S. Attorney before being fired by the Trump administration.  Grace served as a law clerk to Rabner and then to Judge Morton Greenberg of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.  She’s now a partner at McCarter & English.

* Superior Court Judge Julie Nugent, 37, who was appointed to the bench last year – she sits on the Family Court in Atlantic County. She is the youngest member of the New Jersey Judiciary.  The daughter of retired Appellate Court Judge William Nugent, she was formerly a partner in the Gaming Law practice at Fox Rothschild.  She would become the first Asian American to serve on the New Jersey Supreme Court.

* Union County Assignment Judge Lisa Mirrales Walsh, 52, has been a Superior Court Judge since 2017 and became assignment judge after just four years on the bench.  She spent about twelve years as an Assistant Middlesex County Prosecutor and had run her own law firm.  Murphy considered her for the Supreme Court in 2022 and in 2024.

* Appellate Court Judge Maritza Berdote Byrne, 58, was born in Cuba and emigrated to the United States at age 2 ½. She has served as a Superior Court Judge since 2013, and served as the presiding General Equity Judge in Morris County before being elevated to the appellate division in 2022.  Berdote Byrne was considered for a seat in 2022 and 2024.

* Appellate Court Judge Lisa Perez Friscia, 56, a former Assistant Bergen County Prosecutor, became a Superior Court Judge in 2008 at age 37 and was elevated to the appellate division in 2023.  Perez Friscia, who was briefly a Republican when her husband was a councilman in Franklin Lakes, was considered for a Democratic Supreme Court seat in 2023.  Also in 2023, then-U.S. Senator Bob Menendez sought to add Perez Friscia to a list of names to be considered for an open seat on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, but the White House declined.

If selected, Mirrales Walsh, Berdote Byrne, or Perez Friscia could become the first Latina to serve on the New Jersey Supreme Court.

* Bergen County Assignment Judge Carol Novey Catuogno, 60, has served on the bench since 2018 and became the assignment judge in the state’s largest vicinage in 2023.  She spent two decades as an Assistant Bergen County Prosecutor.

* Atlantic/Cape May Assignment Judge Susan Sheppard, 60, has served as a Superior Court Judge since 2017.  She was the presiding General Equity Judge before being named as assignment judge in 2025.  Sheppard served as a councilwoman in Ocean City from 2008 to 2010, as a Cape May County Freeholder from 2012 to 2013, and as Cape May County Surrogate from 2013 to 2018.  She practiced law for 26 years.

* State Sen. Holly Schepisi (R-River Vale), 54, was an assemblywoman from 2012 to 2021, and has served in the State Senate since 2021; she has practiced law for nearly three decades.  Schepisi has been publicly critical of President Donald Trump and is pro-choice, but she did not vote on a 2021 bill that codified Roe v. Wade into state law, saying the legislation went too far.

* Assemblywoman Vicky Flynn (R-Holmdel), 53, was elected to the legislature in 2021 after serving as a school board member in Nutley and Holmdel.  She was a law clerk to New Jersey Supreme Court Justice Jaynee LaVecchia and has close ties to the Office of the Counsel to the Governor.  She has worked for major New Jersey law firms, including Greenbaum Rowe, DeCotiis, Fitzpatrick & Cole, and Hill Wallack.

A major unknown factor is how much weight Sherrill will put on the age of her Supreme Court nominee. Murphy went younger for his three Democratic picks: Pierre-Louis was 39 when she took office, Wainer Apter was 42, and Noriega was 45.  But the two Republicans he put on the top court were older: Fasciale was 62, and Hoffman was 59.

During his eight years as governor, Murphy nominated seven Supreme Court Justices: five of his own picks that could reshape the top court for a generation, and two named by his predecessor and granted tenure after seven years.

Two of his nominees will be up for renomination by the winner of the 2029 governor’s race: Michael Noriega in 2030 and John Jay Hoffman in 2031.

If Patterson remains in his seat until her 70th birthday, any decisions she writes or participates in will still count even if they are released after April 15, 2029.