Meeting the Needs: Fairness, Morality, Creativity and Common Sense Hugh R. Jones Memorial Lecture: Albany Law School - March 29, 2004

am deeply honored to have been asked by the Fund for Modern Courts to give the third Honorable Hugh R. Jones Memorial Lecture. did not have the privilege of serving on the New York State Court of Appeals with Hugh Jones. He retired at the end of 1984 and joined the Court in January of 1986. Nevertheless, Hugh Jones has been a role model, not only as a Judge but as a selfless, public-spirited citizen--one who devoted the better part of his life to serving his country, his state, his community, his church, and his fellow lawyers. His distinguished career included service as a naval officer in the Pacific during World War II, Presidency of the New York State Bar Association, participation as an appointee of Governor Rockefeller on the Commission to Review the Attica Riots, membership on the Board of Trustees of Hamilton College and leadership of the Episcopal Diocese of Central New York as its Chancellor. While Judge Jones will long be remembered for these contributions, it is for his work on the Court of Appeals that his memory will be enshrined. Judge Jones is recognized today as one of the great jurists to have served on the Court of Appeals. His beautifully crafted opinions stand out in the New York Reports as models of scholarship, clarity of thought, and lucid graceful wordsmanship. Their influence in charting the course of the law in New York is unquestioned. While did not serve with Judge Jones on the Court, did have the pleasure of knowing him and his delightful wife, Jean. We saw each other frequently at Bar Association and other functions. We shared a close mutual friend, Miss Lucy Eliott, who today at ninety years of age is a New York City artist of note. Lucy, Jean and Hugh Jones maintained a life-long friendship. Lucy used to tell me that she knew many judges, but only kept pictures of two on her wall--Judges Jones and Hancock. Not bad to be paired with Hugh thought. Lucy will be delighted to learn that am giving this lecture in honor of her dear friend Hugh. Judges Wesley and Levine, in their excellent presentations, have described and analyzed Judge Jones's approach to appellate decision-making as illustrated in his many opinions--such as the far-reaching precedent in Codling v. Paglia (1) which adopted the theory of strict products liability as a rule in New York law--and in his 1979 Cardozo Lecture before the Association of the Bar of the City of New York entitled Cogitations on Appellate Decision Making. (2) As Judge Howard Levine observed last year, Judge Jones, in his Cogitations, stresses four attributes of the ideal common law judge. (3) First, utter neutrality. Second, institutional loyalty. Third, insistence on an objective and rigorous analysis which reduces the risk of result oriented decision-making. And finally, a commitment to the common law process of gradual incremental development of the law through case-by-case evolution and refinement. Most judges and lawyers, believe, would agree with these Jonesian characteristics of the ideal judge which, as acknowledged by both Howard Levine and Judge Jones, are certainly not novel. Indeed, in a recent discussion among well known academics about Justice Sandra Day O'Connor's role as the fifth and deciding vote in many Supreme Court decisions, Justice O'Connor was described in terms that would fit the Jonesian ideal. One professor commented: think Justice O'Connor for many of us in the legal academy represents the ideal of a judge--somebody who doesn't have a predetermined outcome but who in fact does strive to craft a result that is just in the particular case, and is understandable both in terms of legal thought as well as understandable to the larger polity. (4) And he alluded to another essential attribute of our model judge. Again, referring to Justice O'Connor, he said: She has a wonderful expression that says a wise old man and a wise old woman decide pretty much the same way, they just both need wisdom, and he added I think the word 'wisdom' is associated with Justice O'Connor. …