Deborah T. Poritz
Chief Justice Deborah T. Poritz was born Deborah Tobias in Brooklyn, New York, in 1936. Her father was a teacher and her mother was a social worker who was originally from Maine, but had moved to New York to finish college. Ms. Tobias attended James Madison High School and Brooklyn College before earning a Master's Degree in English and American Literature from Columbia University. She married Alan Poritz and the couple had two sons. Poritz taught composition and literature at Ursinus College for three years before deciding to go to law school.
In 1977, at age 40, Poritz received her J.D. from the University of Pennsylvania Law School and shortly thereafter became a Deputy Attorney General in the New Jersey Department of Law and Public Safety. She rose through the ranks to become Assistant Attorney General and Director of the Division of Law and was then named Chief Counsel to New Jersey Governor Thomas Kean in 1989. Poritz spent a short time in private practice until 1994, when she was nominated by Governor Christine Todd Whitman to be Attorney General. In 1996, Whitman nominated Poritz for the position of Chief Justice of the New Jersey Supreme Court—the first woman to hold that position.
"The Chief" quickly became a beloved figure to all around her—respected by her fellow justices for her consensus-building approach and exceptional writing skills, and recognized by judges around the state as an administrator with lofty goals and concrete plans to achieve them. Presiding over a court system with more than 10,000 employees and a budget of approximately $350 million, she made it a point to welcome new judges and court staff and proactively solicit input. She also improved the court system by prioritizing the promotion of women and minorities and expanding the drug court program across the state.
Chief Justice Poritz authored 55 majority opinions, two concurring opinions, five dissenting opinions, and one opinion that was both a concurring as well as a dissenting opinion—many of which were controversial and involved fundamental rights. It has been noted that she often assigned the most controversial decisions to herself so that she would bear the brunt of whatever political backlash might come. Majority decisions authored by Poritz include Dale v. Boy Scouts of America, which dealt with a gay Scout leader being expelled from the Boy Scouts; State v. Fuller, which prohibited peremptory challenges to exlude potential jurors based on clothing associated with a religious group; Toll Brothers v. Township of Windsor, which affirmed the Mt. Laurel decisions and held that the township had not provided a realistic opportunity in its zoning to provide affordable housing; J.B. v. M.B., which dealt with whether frozen embryos could be used by a husband after the couple's divorce; and Planned Parenthood v. Farmer, a case in which New Jersey decided differently than the rest of the country in declaring the Parental Notification for Abortion Act unconstitutional.
Poritz's dissents were equally courageous and, in some ways, more telling of her principles and integrity. One was Lewis v. Harris (2006), in which the majority decided to permit "civil unions" in New Jersey, allowing the same benefits to same-sex couples as to heterosexual married couples, without the title of marriage. She agreed, but dissented on the issue of naming the relationship a "civil union" rather than a marriage, arguing:
We must not underestimate the power of language. Labels set people apart as surely as physical separation on a bus or in school facilities. Labels are used to perpetuate prejudice about differences that, in this case, are embedded in the law. By excluding same-sex couples from civil marriage, the State declares that it is legitimate to differentiate between their commitments and the commitments of heterosexual couples. Ultimately, the message is that what same-sex couples have is not as important or as significant as "real" marriage, that such lesser relationships cannot have the name of marriage.
New Jersey was later required to revise its terminology when the United States Supreme Court essentially agreed with Poritz in Obergefell v. Hodges (2015), which guaranteed same-sex couples the right to marry.
Another notable dissent came in Gerety v. Hilton Casino Resort, in which a woman was fired after exceeding the permissible family and medical leave time of 26 weeks set forth by her employer. Mrs. Gerety's medical need to be out of work for more than 26 weeks was uncontested, due to a high-risk pregnancy in which her doctor ordered bedrest for most of her pregnancy. The New Jersey Court decided there was nothing discriminatory about this firing, since the 26-week limit applied to everyone equally, but Chief Justice Poritz dissented from her peers stating that the disparate impact of the rule on women violated New Jersey's Law Against Discrimination:
I would hold a facially neutral leave policy that has a disparate impact on women violative of N.J.S.A. 10:5-12(a). That there is a disparate impact is obvious and self-evident. We do not need a statistical study or the marshalling of examples to tell us that only women will use their leave for pregnancy-related conditions and that, therefore, only women will need accommodation because of pregnancy-related conditions in order to even the playing field for men and women.[4] Indeed, this case is illustrative of that need. The facts graphically illustrate the disparate impact of Hilton's facially neutral leave policy: both Mr. and Mrs. Gerety work for Hilton; Mrs. Gerety carried the couple's children and Mr. Gerety kept his job.
Chief Justice Poritz retired from the Court at the mandatory age of 70 in 2006, but she didn't slow down or stop fighting for a more just society. She joined the Princeton office of Drinker Biddle & Reath in 2008; joined Rutgers School of Law in Newark and in Camden as a resident professor in 2011; and was a member of the Judicial Advisory Panel from 2006 until 2010, when the four former Justices on the panel resigned to protest Governor Christie's decision not to re-nominate Supreme Court Justice John Wallace. They cautioned against political influence on the court, stating in a letter to the governor that his views were "inconsistent with an independent judiciary." On that, Poritz says,
We felt that this was a blow to judicial independence—that judges couldn't spend the first seven years of their lives on whatever court they were sitting on, worrying about whether they didn't make the right political decision or didn't please some senator or whatever it was, that they would then be thrown out at the end of seven years. That was the antithesis of judicial independence. … I worry all the time. I worry about states where judges are elected, I worry about states where there is the potential to do what the governor here did and I think that if we are ever to see a truly independent judiciary, we need to be very aware of those issues and think of ways that we can safeguard judges.
In yet another demonstration of her commitment to equal justice, Chief Justice Poritz joined the Board of Legal Services of New Jersey upon her retirement from the Court, where she has become an outspoken advocate of public funding for the program. She served as the Board Chair from 2007 to 2017 during a time of significant funding cuts and ensuing programmatic challenges, and volunteered countless hours to provide written and verbal testimony in support of the institution. In short, in the words of friend and colleague Justice Virginia Long, "She has been like the drum majorette for equal justice. That's because she understands that there is no such thing as justice for just some of the people in society and that a justice system which operates in a way that rich people get different outcomes from poor people is not a justice system at all."
AWARDS & RECOGNITIONS
National Association of Women Judges' Lifetime Achievement Award
Civic Leadership Award, New Jersey Council for the Humanities
Honorary Degrees: Princeton University, Drew University, Monmouth University, Montclair University, Rutgers University School of Law, Seton Hall University School of Law, Thomas Edison State College
Alumna of the Year Award, Brooklyn College (1997)
Alumna Award of Merit, University of Pennsylvania Law School (1996)