Five attorneys are on Gov. Dan McKee’s shortlist to get a lifetime appointment to the state’s judicial branch, including a former Rhode Island Senate majority leader whose advancement has drawn opposition from progressive advocates.
The Judicial Nominating Commission met for four hours Wednesday evening to interview nine candidates vying for a District Court seat that opened last year when then-Associate Judge Melissa DuBose was appointed to the federal bench by then-President Joe Biden. Dubose now serves as a judge for the U.S. District Court for the District of Rhode Island.
Under state law, the commission sends a list of three to five “highly qualified candidates” to the governor for each judicial vacancy after conducting public hearings and interviews. The governor then nominates a candidate from that list to the Rhode Island Senate for confirmation.
The candidates on the governor’s list include Michael McCaffrey, a Warwick Democrat who served as the Senate’s majority leader from 2017 through the end of the 2022 legislative session.
Nearly a dozen speakers attending the commission’s July 8 public hearing voiced their opposition to McCaffrey’s candidacy.
“I am not sure if it was the largest turnout ever for a JNC meeting to take public comment, but it was the largest I have seen during my tenure as chair,” Chairwoman Krystle Tadesse wrote in an email to Rhode Island Current Thursday.
Leading up to the July 8 hearing and Wednesday night’s public interview sessions, the Womxn Project took to social media to encourage the public to oppose McCaffrey’s potential appointment, comparing him to conservative U.S. Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh.
“He has publicly shamed different communities that are marginalized and doesn’t stand for the separation of church and state,” Jocelyn Foye, the organization’s director and co-founder, said of McCaffrey in an interview Thursday.
McCaffrey served in the Rhode Island Senate from 1995 through the end of the 2022 legislative session, when he announced he would not seek re-election. A conservative member of his party, McCaffrey was part of the leadership team that allowed a vote on codifying abortion-rights to go to the floor in 2019. He ultimately voted against the measure that ultimately passed
He was also among the 12 senators who voted no when the chamber passed the bill to legalize same-sex marriage in 2013.
McCaffrey told the panel he would not let his political influences impact any decision he would make as a judge, as captured on video by Providence-based advocacy journalist Steve Ahlquist.
“As a judge, you have to listen to the facts, be neutral, and then apply whatever the state law is,” he said to the commission.
McCaffrey said his understanding of the matters “has evolved.”
“I have listened, learned and grown — both personally and professionally — and I have members of my family who are members of those communities,” he said. “I believe that growth is an essential quality that is important in any judge.”
Foye said in a time when LGBT and abortion rights are in question federally, it’s important that the state has a champion of such issues on the bench.
“He is going for only a District Court position, but he is in a place to be fast-tracked to the Supreme Court of Rhode Island,” she said.
Along with McCaffrey’s name, the panel recommended the following four other candidates to McKee:
- Rebecca Aitchison, an assistant public defender
- Maria Deaton, a former state prosecutor and East Providence probate judge who practices criminal law at Lynch & Pine
- Anthony J. DiBiase, Jr., a Warwick attorney whose practice areas range from personal injury to criminal defense
- Robert E. Johnson, IV, a special assistant attorney general
Under the commission’s rules, members can vote up to five times as each candidate is considered.
In the final vote tally, McCaffrey, Deaton and Johnson all received six votes. Aitchinson and DiBiase each had five votes. Eight of the nine commissioners were present on Wednesday. Commissioner Nkolika Etell Onye was absent.
The other four candidates interviewed who did not make the list and the number of votes they received are: Amy Dodge Murray (4); Alan Goulart (2); Eva-Marie Mancuso (1); and Ania Zielinski (1).
Laura Hart, a spokesperson for McKee’s office, said the governor has received the formal nomination list and will review each potential judge.
This story was originally published by the Rhode Island Current.
