Time for Justice Rivera-Soto to resign | NJ.com

Time for Justice Rivera-Soto to resign | NJ.com  Tom Moran of the Star-Ledger lays out the facts and the situation well.  He begins

State Supreme Court Justice Roberto Rivera-Soto embarrassed the court once before, over personal misbehavior that forced his fellow justices to censure him in 2007.

But now he has gone overboard. Now, he has insulted his fellow justices and accused them of partisan political motivations. More important, he is refusing to cast votes or write decisions on the cases before him.

Enough. This appointment was a mistake from the start. It is time for Rivera-Soto to resign. He is essentially refusing to do his job anyway.

This dispute has its roots in Gov. Chris Christie’s decision to remove Justice John Wallace from the court earlier this year. Until then, governors in both parties had reappointed justices in good standing, despite ideological differences. Christie was the first to attack the court’s independence by subjecting justices to a political litmus test.