Paul Feinman, First Overtly Homosexual Judge on N.Y. Large Courtroom, Dies at 61

Choose Paul G. Feinman, the to start with openly gay jurist to provide on New York State’s greatest courtroom, the Court of Appeals, died on Wednesday at a Manhattan clinic. He was 61.

The cause was acute myeloid leukemia, his spouse, Robert Ostergaard, stated. Decide Feinman experienced been taken care of for the illness when he was appointed to the appeals court docket by Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo in 2017.

His appointment came barely a ten years just after the Court docket of Appeals had ruled that the state Structure conferred no legal proper for exact same-sex couples to marry. That proper was granted by the Legislature in 2011 by the Relationship Equality Act.

Choose Feinman was unanimously verified by the Point out Senate, however through a listening to by the Senate Judiciary Committee a person legislator had pointedly famous that a white man was succeeding the 1st Black woman to serve on the appeals courtroom, Choose Sheila Abdus-Salaam, who experienced just lately died at 65 in what was afterwards dominated a suicide.

“Certainly my whole career has been about promoting equal entry and equivalent justice for all,” Choose Feinman responded, alluding to his own experience as a gay gentleman, “and I hope I insert to the diversity of views that the court docket considers.”

Requested at the time no matter whether he viewed as himself a judicial activist or a traditionalist, he replied: “I make your mind up every situation primarily based on the regulation and the facts. If other people want to characterize it, that is up to them.”

Decide Feinman was a past president of the Affiliation of Supreme Court docket Justices of the Point out of New York. He was the former president of the International Association of L.G.B.T.Q. Judges and a member of the Richard C. Failla L.G.B.T.Q. Fee, which encourages good treatment of L.G.B.T.Q. folks and challenges in the court programs. He was sworn in on June 21, 2017, during Gay Delight Month.

In a assertion soon after the demise, Governor Cuomo called the choose a “friend and job model to countless L.G.B.T.Q. attorneys, serving to to shepherd us out of an era where being openly L.G.B.T.Q. could suggest disbarment.” He added, “It was my honor to appoint him to the bench.”

Matthew J. Skinner, the Failla commission’s government director, recalled walking earlier the L.G.B.T.Q. rainbow flag traveling from Albany’s Metropolis Corridor on the day of Judge Feinman’s swearing in and experience “like these a barrier experienced been melted away.”

“He was never a snob or an elitist, offered the stress he carried for the whole neighborhood as the initial,” Mr. Skinner claimed in a cellular phone interview. He recalled anything Sandra Day O’Connor experienced reported when, in 1981, she became the very first girl to sit on the United States Supreme Courtroom. “She talked about, if you are the to start with, you want to make positive you’re not the very last,” he mentioned. “Paul certainly lived up to that.”

Paul George Feinman was born on Jan. 26, 1960, in Merrick, N.Y., on Lengthy Island, to Bernard and Judith (Wale) Feinman. His mother was a supervisor for the Nassau County Division of Social Expert services, and his father created trimmings for women’s garments.

Choose Feinman and Mr. Ostergaard, who is electronic communications director at Montclair State College in New Jersey, were being married in 2013.

In addition to his partner, he is survived by his mother a sister, Fran Beilinson and a brother, Philip. Two brothers experienced died. Choose Feinman lived on Roosevelt Island.

Soon after graduating from John F. Kennedy Large University in nearby Bellmore, he gained a bachelor’s degree in French literature in 1981 from Columbia College. He grew to become so taken by French lifestyle that he would consider his nieces and nephews to Paris on their 16th birthdays.

Obtaining labored as a authorized intern in Upper Manhattan as a Columbia undergrad, he attended the College of Minnesota Law College on a complete scholarship and assisted observed an association of gay pupils there. Soon after graduating, he worked for the Legal Assist Modern society in Nassau County and as a legislation clerk to Justice Angela M. Mazzarelli of the New York Supreme Court docket, the state’s demo courtroom technique, in New York City.

In 1996, he was elected to the Civil Court from Lessen Manhattan — squeaking by in the Democratic main. He was made an performing justice of the Supreme Court docket in 2004, elected to the court docket in 2007 and elevated by Governor Cuomo to the Appellate Division in 2012.

Judge Feinman discovered he experienced leukemia in 2015. He experienced been handled with chemotherapy and stem mobile transplants, which he gained in 2016 from a girl in Germany who was a bone marrow donor. He declared his resignation from the Court very last week, citing sick wellness.