Chief Judge Lawrence H. Cooke --
"Justice is a very fragile commodity"By TOM RUE
MONTICELLO - People who know Lawrence H. Cooke speak of the sharpness of his sense of justice, his excellent memory, and his wit. In his quest to do right by the public he served, Cooke rose from being supervisor at age 30 of a rural township in what was then still a backwoods county to occupy the highest judicial office in the State of New York.
Describing justice as "the pinnacle of pinnacles," Cooke spent is his entire life seeking to find it.
"Justice was always the great virtue. All of us have a great duty to render justice and fairness to our neighbors in everyday affairs. If a person is wronged, it's hard to make that up to them," Cooke reflected. "We only go through life once. Justice is a very fragile commodity. If you deprive somebody of something, you can't give it back to them. If you take their time away with a wrongful sentence, you can't give it back to them."
Voicing pride that in a quarter of a century as a judge he "never once held anyone in contempt" of court, Cooke said simply that he never found the need. "I never held anybody in contempt and I never was discourteous to anybody. I kept a strong hand on it. If anybody talked out of order, I stopped it. I had a strong voice and I used it. But it was a courteous voice."
Throughout his career, Cooke said, he did his best to avoid partiality or its appearance. He denied ever having had a formal political organization, in the traditional sense, or even attending fund-raising events held for his election campaigns. "Some people said they couldn't understand that, but I didn't even want to know who donated," he said.
"My father used to tell me, 'I hope you never have to say it, but you ought to be able to tell anybody to go to hell if you have to,'" Cooke said. Cooke chaired the Sullivan County Board of Supervisors from 1947 to 1953, when he was elected Judge of Sullivan County Court and Surrogate Court -- an office previously held by his father. He was re-elected in 1959 with endorsements by all political parties. As a statesman, Cooke said he took pains to reach out to all of the voters, not just one particular party. It paid off.
"I was lucky," Cooke said, "I never had a big organization behind me. I was not the slave of anybody. I went out and saw the people and got their support."
Cooke said he could never afford TV advertising, but sometimes paid for newpaper ads and raido time in his campaigns. "I went wherever there was a crowd. I sent literature to my friends to have them carry the message," he explained.
In 1961, Cooke was again endorsed by both major political parties, as well as by smaller ones, winning the seat of Supreme Court justice of the Third Judicial Department, covering four counties. He served in that post until the end of 1974. During this period Cooke was designated by Gov. Nelson Rockefeller to the Appellate Division of the Third Judicial District, covering 28 counties. "He was a Republican. I was quite proud of that," said Cooke, a lifelong enrolled Democrat.
Cooke was elected an Associate Justice of the NYS Court of Appeals in 1974. Campaign ads from that time describe him as a champion of laws strengthening the rights of rape victims, such as limiting the manner in which a victim's past sexual history could be trotted out before a jury in order to support a consent defense.
Cooke noted that, to his knowledge, he is the only man to have been admitted as an honorary member of the NYS Women's Bar Association.
Following a 1978 state constitutional amendment providing for gubernatorial appointment of the Chief Judge of the NYS Court of Appeals, Cooke was named to that post by Gov. Hugh Carey -- a Democrat. He then headed 3500 courts across the state, 1100 of which were of major size, as well as 12,000 non-judicial personnel. "It was a job of great magnitude," he said.
Cooke expressed satisfaction with the over 250 editorials which appeared -- in daily newspapers alone -- while he was in office, lauding his reforms. Some of these reforms included transferring judges to other localities, requiring courts hold session for long hours to reduce backlogs, and setting uniform vacation allowances for judges and other court personnel. The measures succeeded, Cooke said, resulting in a 21% reduction in the backlog of civil cases during his first year in office.
The first Chief Judge selected under the new merit system, Cooke met head-on the mammoth challenge of overcoming resistance from those whose power and turf were under siege. "There were some in high judicial places that lost power as a result of the constitutional amendment, but the people were always behind us," Cooke recalled.
He appointed the 19-member Women In Law Task Force, to study gender equity in the court system, examining how lawyers, judges, and parties were treated. "That was received with great acclamation throughout the country. It was widely quoted," said Cooke.
The judge is quoted as a respected authority in the 1975 feminist classic, Against Our Will: Men, Women and Rape, by journalist Susan Brownmiller. "Despite the supposed emotional aspects of a rape trial, the defense rarely ever waives a jury trial knowing that the jury is an ally, not an enemy. Juries, which are often male-dominated, are extremely reluctant to convict," Cooke is quoted by Brownmiller in a speech she gave before the New York Bar Association.
Cooke has also been described as the only judicial candidate to carry to the Good Housekeeping seal of approval. An August 1974 issue quoted Cooke: "When it comes to rape, 'Women are outside the effective protection of the law, and criminals know it.' This startling statement by Judge Lawrence H. Cooke of the Appellate Division of New York's Supreme Court sums up a situation which has become a national scandal..."
To the best of his knowledge, Cooke said, he is the only man to have been admitted as an honorary member of the New York Women's Bar Association, which occurred in 1982. But he declined to describe himself as a feminist, preferring to avoid fuzzy labels as easy pigeonholes which alienate some and produce few results in themselves. Instead, he said, he prefers to let his decisions and actions over the years speak for themselves.
"I just tried to treat all people with fairness, no matter who they were, said Cooke, who is said to have been instrumental in opening up membership in the Sullivan County Bar Association to Jews in years following World War II. Despite its central proximity to the so-called "Borscht Belt" Sullivan County has never been entirely free of anti-Semitism, but Cooke did his part to help make it so.
Perhaps it was his even-handedness as a justice and judge that won Cooke wide bipartisan support throughout his career. Appointed in 1986 by President Ronald Reagan to chair the State Justice Institute, Cooke explained that the Secretariat of the State Justice Institute is the National Center for State Courts, which in turn helps set policy to enhance state courts and advance state courts' interests within the federal government.
One of the court decisions Cooke wrote strengthened and upheld the constitutionality of what is commonly referred to as the Shield Law, protecting news reporters from subpoena. Cooke said the case, which he cited as the Matter of Beach vs. Shanley (62 NY 2d 241), involved WBAI radio in New York City.
During the period in which he was chief of New York's highest court, Cooke also led both the State Justice Institute and the National Center for State Courts. On April 8th, in Williamsburg, Virginia, the board of directors of the latter group devoted a special meeting to Cooke's honor; the first time they have conferred such an tribute on anyone. In 1987, he received the Distinguished Service Award from the National Center for State Courts. He has received numerous other awards and honors in recent years.
Retirement in 1979 was automatic for Cooke due to his age, though he admitted he considered challenging the legality of that constitutional provision. "But I had been appointed under that and I decided it would be renegging on the understanding. I hated to lose the work because I enjoyed it and we were accomplishing things."
From 1988 to 1991, Cooke said he taught at Pace Law School, and is still occasionally called upon to travel to other jurisdictions to testify as an expert witness on New York law.
Cooke said that his recent selection for the DeWitt Clinton Masonic Award for distinguished community service carries special meaning because it is from his home community. Examining the program for an upcoming event to be held in his honor in Monticello High School auditorium, Cooke said he knew everyone listed on the program and had something to say about each one.
Now 80 years old, Cooke's well-known keen ability to associate names with faces has is undimmed. Though officially "retired," Cooke remains Of Counsel to the Albany law firm of White, Brenner & Feigenbaum. He said he was also recently invited to co-author a book with Pace University law professor Jay Carlisle on the subject of pre-trial litigation.
Despite being out of judicial office since 1984, Cooke said he still steers clear of commenting on or becoming involved with local issues. But he is far from uninterested. Cooke recalled a trial decision he issued, while in Supreme Court, which declared the former system of voting on the county Board of Supervisors to be unconstitutional. The suit was brought by Kurt Shilbury, a Hortonville resident who presented the petition pro se, Cooke said. The resulting system of "weighted voting" on the county board was intended as a temporary remedy, Cooke said, but it lasted until last year when voters overwhelmingly approved a new county Charter calling for a new legislative form of government.
Cooke confirmed a report that he was invited to chair the commission which drafted the Charter, stating he declined for two reasons. The first reason Cooke gave was his role in issuing the earlier Supreme Court decision, though he agreed this would not have been a conflict of interest in itself. More importantly, he admitted, he did not want any resulting controversy to hurt the campaign of his son, George Cooke, who was then running his first campaign for county clerk.
Minutes of a meeting of the Sullivan County Board of Supervisors this past January 12th record current chairman Andrew Boyar as calling for designating an annual Citizenship Day, coinciding with Cooke's birthday."
Boyar said: "Wouldn't it be a splendid idea to have a 'Citizenship Day' in Sullivan County? I ask you to proclaim along with me that October 15, 1995, and on October 15 every year thereafter, shall be known and celebrated as Citizenship Day. The County shall promote good citizenship and the examination of that ideal on that day (not coincidentally the birthday of our esteemed and beloved first citizen, the Honorable Lawrence H. Cooke.)"
But like Cooke's parents -- and for that matter, like his children and their spouses -- before being a public servant Lawrence Cooke is a man deeply devoted to his family.
As he showed a reporter the portraits and snapshots on his living room walls, amid all the rest the ones to which which received the most attention and comment were those of his children and beloved grandchildren. As the interview concluded, family arrived from Massachusetts, sharing eager hugs with Grandfather in his customary three-piece suit and "Lala," as they affectionately call Mrs. Cooke.
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