Stu Rabner Is No Gambler And The NJ Supreme Court Wins

Most newspaper readers are unaware that reporters don't write their headlines. But that's no excuse for the the desk person at the Times of Trenton who wrote, "Prosecutor who dreamed of judgeship hits jackpot," for the Sunday feature Josh Margolin and Kate Coscarelli wrote about the impending nomination of Stuart Rabner as Chief Justice of the NJ Supreme Court.

The gambling implication in the headline was an affront to a professional, highly principled attorney and prosecutor who spent as distinguished a career as any lawyer in the Garden State before today's appointment by Gov. Jon Corzine.

During the decade after I started and managed the U.S. Attorney's Public Affairs Office in New Jersey, if there was one prosecutor (besides Sam Alito and Mike Chertoff) who demonstrated the temperament, quick legal mind and fairness that we want our judges to possess it was Stu Rabner.

Even in the most frenetic, breaking news moments Stu was calm, cool , collected and collegial. Starting with an international money laundering prosecution, through the sad case of the late Nicholas Bissell, in the Montclair Post Office murders, the crazy comments by Ed Rollins, and scores of other matters, Stu showed why he should be a judge.

I never knew his politics and the Sunday article with the aberrant headline made that clear. He didn't travel in political circles.

Good for him and good for New Jersey. Every state needs judges who are first rate attorneys and Supreme Court Justices should be the best of the best lawyers...not politicians.

Kudos to Governor Corzine for this appointment. I spoke briefly with him in the statehouse a week or two before his accident, mentioning that he was lucky to have Stu Rabner as his attorney general. "I know," Corzine said, adding how impressed he was with him.