Stuart Rabner

Stuart Jeff Rabner (born June 30, 1960) is the chief justice of the New Jersey Supreme Court. He served as New Jersey Attorney General, chief counsel to Governor Jon Corzine, and as a federal prosecutor at the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of New Jersey. Biography Rabner grew up in Passaic, New Jersey, and graduated from Passaic High School in 1978, where he was the class valedictorian. He graduated summa cum laude with a Bachelor of Arts from the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University in 1982 after completing a 172-page long senior thesis titled "A Commitment Compromised: The Treatment of Nazi War Criminals by the United States Government." He then graduated cum laude from Harvard Law School in 1985. He is a resident of Caldwell, New Jersey. He was married in 1989 to Dr. Deborah Ann Wiener, and has three children: Erica, Carly, and Jack. In June 2007, he was named the most influential political personality in the state of New Jersey. In 2010, his name was proposed as a nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court to replace Associate Justice John Paul Stevens. Appointment as Chief Justice On June 4, 2007, Governor Corzine nominated Rabner to be Chief Justice of the New Jersey Supreme Court, replacing James R. Zazzali, who was nearing the mandatory retirement age. Shortly after the nomination, two members of the New Jersey Senate from Essex County, where Rabner resides, blocked consideration of his confirmation by invoking "senatorial courtesy", a Senate tradition that allows home county legislators to intercede to prevent consideration of a nominee from the counties they represent. State Senator Ronald Rice had initially blocked the nomination, but relented on June 15, 2007, after a meeting with the governor. Senator Nia Gill dropped her block on June 19, 2007, but did not initially explain the nature of concerns.