John Jay Hoffman was interviewed by the Senate Judiciary Committee on Sept. 26, 2024, at the Statehouse in Trenton to become an associate justice on the state Supreme Court. (Photo by Mary Iuvone for New Jersey Monitor)
John Jay Hoffman, a former state attorney general who most recently was Rutgers University’s chief counsel, is expected to be confirmed Monday as the newest associate justice on the New Jersey Supreme Court after the Senate’s judiciary committee unanimously approved his nomination Thursday.
Hoffman, 59, is slated to replace former Justice Lee Solomon, a Republican who served a decade on the bench and retired last month when he turned 70, the mandatory retirement age for judges in New Jersey.
“I could never have imagined in my life that I would have the opportunity to serve my state in one of its most respected and challenging jobs,” Hoffman told committee members during a 10-minute speech Thursday at the Statehouse in Trenton.
Hoffman discussed his long career in public service, which started in Washington, D.C., where he was a trial attorney at the U.S. Department of Justice. He joined the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Trenton in 2004, and he called that job — in which he prosecuted violent and white-collar crime — his “most formative.”
There, he said, he learned that “justice was not measured by a statistic, and justice was not measured by a conviction. Rather, it was measured by doing what was right and what was fair.”
“It was here that I gained a healthy appreciation for a principle that must be a guiding light for any judge, especially one who sits on this most esteemed court,” he added. “Our system not only survives, but thrives, if we respect the separation of powers in government that we rely upon to check and to balance the power and the authority in our democracy.”
In 2010, Hoffman joined the state comptroller’s office to serve as its director of investigations. He moved in 2012 to the state attorney general’s office as executive assistant attorney general, and a year later, then-Gov. Chris Christie named him acting attorney general, a post he held until 2016.
Since then, he has worked at Rutgers.
Murphy announced Hoffman as his nominee in June, calling him “a pillar of New Jersey’s legal community.” He’s the fifth person Murphy has nominated to the state’s top court since he became governor in 2018.
As acting attorney general, Murphy said, Hoffman fought the opioid crisis, reformed procedures for investigating police-involved shootings, and mandated the use of body-worn cameras by state police.
Thursday, Hoffman sailed through his confirmation hearing with none of the confrontational questions or pushback endured by some other state Supreme Court nominees. Justice Rachel Wainer Apter, a Democrat, faced two hours of testy questioning in 2022 before the panel approved her in a vote split largely along party lines.
Committee members gushed about Hoffman’s accomplishments and applauded his nomination. They noted his humanity, “impeccable” credentials, and charity work.
After his son, Johnny, was diagnosed with leukemia at age 11 in 2021, the boy started a foundation bringing blankets to sick kids in hospitals. Johnny — who Hoffman called “my idol, my hero” — accompanied his father to Thursday’s hearing and sat smiling behind him, along with Hoffman’s wife, Mary Jude, daughter, Maggie, and father, John A. Hoffman, senior partner at Wilentz, Goldman & Spitzer.
John Jay Hoffman hugs his son, Johnny, on Sept. 26, 2024, at the Statehouse in Trenton after being interviewed by the Senate Judiciary Committee to become an associate justice on the state Supreme Court. (Photo by Mary Iuvone for New Jersey Monitor)
“We’re very fortunate to have you to be nominated to be an associate justice on the Supreme Court, somebody with your experience, somebody with your character,” said Sen. Brian Stack (D-Hudson), the committee’s chair.
Sen. Jon Bramnick (R-Union) called Hoffman an “excellent pick” who has “a deep concern for mankind.”
“John Hoffman is a sensitive human being, a person who, and you can see he is, has that emotion,” Bramnick said. “We have a candidate with the intellect, the experience, the sensitivity, and the ethics needed to be a Supreme Court justice.”
The full Senate is expected to confirm Hoffman at a voting session scheduled for noon Monday.
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