The Meaning of Judge Anthony Cannataro’s Uptick in Dissents
By Gianluca A. Alonzi
Gianluca currently works for the Albany County District Attorney’s Office in the City Court Unit.
He wrote this paper for Professor Bonventre's Court of Appeals Intensive Seminar.
An interesting pattern that has begun to emerge in the New York Court of Appeals under the leadership of Chief Judge Rowan Wilson is the sudden increase in dissenting opinions written by Judge Anthony Cannataro. Cannataro was appointed in 2021 and never wrote a dissent until October of 2023. Since then, he has dissented in more than ten cases.
There are a multitude of reasons why a judge may dissent and many times a close reading “between the lines” is necessary to fully understand why.
This paper examines the background of the Court under the leadership of both former-Chief Judge Janet DiFiore and current-Chief Judge Rowan Wilson, along with the substance of Cannataro’s dissents. The purpose is to seek some underlying reasons why Judge Cannataro has become a dissenter, and what this may suggest about the state of New York’s highest court.
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To read the paper, open HERE.
