King of the Mountain: The Rise, Fall, and Redemption of Chief Judge Sol Wachtler

An oddity of the New York State judicial system is that the Supreme Court is not the highest-ranking body but is subordinate to the Court of Appeals, whose chief judge is the head of the state system. Wachtler was appointed to this position by Governor Mario Cuomo in 1985, after 12 years as a justice on the court, preceded by four years on the Supreme Court, to which he had been named by Gov. Nelson Rockefeller. A liberal Republican particularly supportive of First Amendment rights and in battling prejudice against women and minorities, Wachtler combined devotion to principle with pragmatism to become a popular and respected jurist. While on the bench, Wachtler began an affair with a socialite, Joy Silverman (he was executor of her father's will); when she rejected him and took another lover, he harassed and otherwise threatened her via telephone and the U.S. mail, even intimating he might kidnap her daughter. Brought to trial, he pleaded guilty to the kidnap threat and served 11 months in prison. On his release in 1994, he published a prison memoir, After the Madness, and he is now teaching at Truro Law School in upstate New York. Caher, an editor of the Albany [N.Y.] Times Union, presents Wachtler as both an individual and a judge. His biography is eminently fair and occasionally witty. Photos not seen by PW. (Mar.)