From social media posts to pension disputes, New Jersey’s judiciary faced a year of sharp contrasts, marked by significant wins and losses for the state’s judges.

New Jersey judges have faced disciplinary actions and legal challenges in 2024 with mixed results. A Bergen County judge was disciplined for videos he posted to TikTok, while a presiding judge saw his disciplinary matter involving a remote employee dismissed by the New Jersey Supreme Court. And a judicial nominee who never took her seat on the bench due to a pension dispute won her case before the Appellate Division.

Bergen County Judge Has TikTok Trouble

In October, Judge Gary Wilcox agreed to a three-month suspension without pay for a series of videos he posted to TikTok. Some of the videos were filmed in his chambers while he was wearing his judicial robes and included songs, while others included profanity, graphic sexual references, and racist terminology.

Wilcox serves as a judge in the Criminal Division of the Bergen Vicinage. The New Jersey Supreme Court issued an order agreeing with the Advisory Committee on Judicial Conduct's recommendation to grant Wilcox discipline by consent, which included a three-month suspension without pay as a sanction.

A June 2023 complaint against Wilcox alleged that he posted 40 videos under the alias "Sal Tortorella," 11 of which included either content, location, or physical appearance that was "inappropriate and brought disrepute to the judiciary."

Wilcox answered the complaint in August 2023 by arguing that his posts "constituted a permissible exercise of his First Amendment right to engage in such conduct on his personal device" because it was done in a manner that was "disconnected from his actual identity and professional life."

He alleged that his actions merited an admonition, at most.

Presiding Judge Avoids Discipline

A controversial disciplinary complaint filed against a presiding judge for allowing his secretary to work remotely was ultimately dismissed by the New Jersey Supreme Court.

Douglas H. Hurd, the Mercer County Superior Court presiding judge of the Civil Division, was alleged to have violated three cannons of the Code of Judicial Conduct by allowing his secretary to work from home in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. After the complaint was initially filed with the ACJC, a September order issued by the New Jersey Supreme Court stopped those proceedings, and the high court took on the case.

In October, the court unanimously dismissed the charges against Hurd. Chief Justice Stuart Rabner signed the order, which said the court found no violations of the CJC and exercised its discretion to dismiss the disciplinary complaint.

Sources who spoke with the Law Journal said it was very rare for the high court to take a case from the ACJC before the disciplinary body had made a ruling.

Former Prosecutor Can Have It All

The Appellate Division sided with Jill Mayer, a New Jersey Superior Court nominee, who fought to keep her pension while serving on the bench.

Mayer was nominated to the Camden County bench after serving 26 years with the New Jersey Office of the Attorney General. However, she found herself at the center of a pension dispute, resulting in her joining Parker McCay instead of sitting on the bench.

After being confirmed by the Senate, the Division of Pensions and Benefits told Mayer that she had not completely terminated her employment relationship with the state because she "pre-planned" to return to state service within a required 180-day separation period. In other words, if Mayer took her seat on the bench, she would lose her pension.

The court's published opinion, issued in October, acknowledged that Mayer took steps toward her judicial nomination before her retirement date but disagreed with a Public Employees' Retirement System decision that those moves constituted prearrangement of employment.

"After a careful review, we determine the board mistakenly applied the regulation to these specific circumstances," Appellate Division Judge Heidi Willis Currier wrote for the court.

Willis Currier said that the nature of the judicial selection process makes it impossible for anyone to arrange a judgeship because an individual has no control over the process. The opinion further held that at the earliest, the "agreement" was reached on the date of Mayer's Senate confirmation.