The first woman to serve as the state’s chief judge was hailed as a pioneer by mourners who filled a Lincoln Center theater Monday for a memorial service in her honor.
Judges, lawyers and politicians remembered Judith Kaye for her stature on the bench. But she was lauded just as much for her work to keep criminals out of her courtroom in the first place.
“This elegant, classy, graceful debonair woman was a revolutionary,” said former Mayor Michael Bloomberg. “And the revolution she ignited has helped countless Americans get their lives back on track and stay out of jail and has spared countless more people from being victims of crime.”
Kaye, 77, who died Thursday from cancer in her Manhattan home, presided over the seven-member Court of Appeals for nearly 16 years.
She was appointed in 1983 by Gov. Mario Cuomo as an associate judge of the Court of Appeals.
A decade later, she was elevated to chief judge when Sol Wachtler abruptly resigned in disgrace after his arrest on charges of blackmailing his former lover and her daughter.
Kaye presided during an era in which the city’s crime rate plummeted to record lows and the population at Riker’s Island was reduced by more than a third. She also paved the judicial path for the state and U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark rulings on gay marriage. In her minority opinion on the state’s 2006 gay marriage case Hernandez v. Robles, Kaye famously wrote that “the long duration of a constitutional wrong cannot justify its perpetuation.”
Fellow jurist Carmen B. Ciparick choked up as she shared fond memories of her decades-long friendship with the eccentric judge Kaye, who loved high fashion and wearing the color red.
“You literally left this world as you wanted to, wearing your red high-heeled shoes and ready to get back to work,” she said. “You were an inspiration, a mentor and a good friend, Judith. I will miss our dinners, our shoe shopping forays, our occasional nights at the opera right across the (Lincoln Center) plaza.”
Kaye’s daughter, Luisa Kaye Hagemeier, wept as she described her mother’s unique personality, calling her a “rebel” with a cause who was always full of life.
“She did not lie down for death. When my brothers found her, she was sitting up,” Hagemeier recalled. “She never stopped making an impact. Like a stone that skips across the water, she left ripples that will be felt for an eternity.”
Kaye’s coffin lay in the middle of the David H. Koch theater’s stage draped in a Jewish ceremonial black cloth, flanked by lit candles.
Among those paying respects were former Gov. Elliot Spitzer and U.S. Sen. Chuck Schumer.
