Gov. Murphy will nominate Rutgers general counsel to Supreme Court

Gov. Phil Murphy will nominate former acting Attorney General John Hoffman to fill retiring Justice Lee Solomon’s seat on the state’s Supreme Court, the governor announced Monday.

Hoffman, who has been general counsel and a senior vice president at Rutgers University since 2016, is an unaffiliated voter who served as Gov. Chris Christie’s acting attorney general for a little under three years — the longest anyone held the post without being confirmed.

“As many will attest, John is already a pillar of New Jersey’s legal community,” Murphy said during the announcement at the Statehouse. “Like Justice Solomon, he has devoted almost the entirety of his career to public service.”

His confirmation, should it come to pass, would maintain the New Jersey Supreme Court’s tradition of partisan balance. Historically, the governor’s party maintains a 4-3 majority on the high court.

Hoffman, who served for six years as a federal prosecutor and seven as a federal civil litigator, would sit for an initial seven-year term and, if renominated and reconfirmed, would remain on the Supreme Court until he reaches the age of mandatory retirement age of 70 on Aug. 23, 2035.

“This is an incredibly humbling moment in my life,” he said at the announcement.

Solomon, a former Camden County prosecutor who has sat on the Supreme Court since 2014, will turn 70 on Aug. 17.

“For the last ten years, all of New Jersey has benefited from his wisdom and perspectives,” Murphy said of Solomon.

As acting attorney general, Hoffman enacted a policy that pushed the adoption of body-worn cameras for police, though his office argued against the release of some other documents, like police use-of-force reports and dashboard camera footage, before the state Supreme Court.

He presided over the enactment of the Overdose Prevention Act, which bars some minor drug charges for individuals who call 911 to aid with a drug overdose, expanding the policy to apply to others who collaborate in the call.

Later, his office launched pilot programs to provide Narcan, an opioid overdose antidote, to police.

“I know that a person of John’s intellect, of his integrity, of his professionalism — we couldn’t ask for a better person,” said Senate President Nicholas Scutari (D-Union).

Before joining the Attorney General’s Office, Hoffman directed the investigations division for the state comptroller, which probes governments for waste and abuse.

Hoffman said when Murphy offered him the nomination on Friday, the profoundness of the offer left him silent for roughly 30 seconds.

“I am not usually stuck for words like that, but this time I was,” he said Monday, adding directly to Murphy, “I appreciate your having certainly heard the roar that was in my silence.”

Hoffman’s confirmation is unlikely to face the same hurdles that delayed the confirmation of Justice Rachel Wainer Apter.

Bergen County Republican Sen. Holly Schepisi’s invocation of senatorial courtesy, an unwritten rule that allows senators to unilaterally block nominees from their home counties or legislative districts, left Wainer Apter’s nomination in stasis for 19 months.

Schepisi said she blocked the nomination to ensure the court’s partisan balance continued, and Wainer Apter was only confirmed once Republican Douglas Fasciale was nominated for a separate high court vacancy. Both Wainer Apter and Fasciale now sit on the court.

Hoffman is a resident of Burlington County, where Sens. Troy Singleton (D-Burlington) and Latham Tiver (R-Burlington) can exercise courtesy over his nomination.

As Senate president, Scutari could block his nomination, but that, too, is unlikely. The Senate president and the nominee are longtime acquaintances, and Scutari spoke highly of Hoffman Monday.

Hoffman’s nomination is the last Murphy is expected to make to the Supreme Court, and his successor may only get the chance to replace one justice, Justice Anne Patterson, who will turn 70 in 2029. Murphy’s term ends in January 2026.

The nomination is the fifth Murphy has made to the state’s court of last resort. If confirmed, Murphy will have placed more justices on the court than every governor since Gov. Christine Todd Whitman, whose tenure saw six confirmed to the Supreme Court.

An earlier version of this story should have said Murphy’s successor may have the chance to replace one Supreme Court justice.