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NJ Supreme Court Justices Put On Their Boxing Gloves Over Abstention by Associate Justice

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  Argues Chief Justice did not have power to fill vacant seat In an unprecedented move that jolted New Jersey's legal community, on December 10, 2010 New Jersey Supreme Court Justice Roberto A. Rivera-Soto announced that he will abstain from the New Jersey Supreme Court's decisions claiming that the Court's Chief Justice, the Honorable Stuart Rabner, did not have the constitutional power to appoint a temporary justice (appeals court Justice Edwin Stern) to temporarily fill a vacant seat on the seven-member Court.  The dispute stems from a controversy that has been boiling since May 2010 when Republican New Jersey Governor Christie refused to renominate Democratic-appointed Justice John Wallace to the Court and, instead, nominated Anne Patterson, a Morristown attorney and a Republican. Democratic legislative leaders charged that Governer Christie's action was unparalleled and Senate President Stephen M. Sweeney (D-Gloucester) declared the upper house