By CRISTINE MEIXNER

For the C-S-E

SPECULATOR - Eight candidates will vie for four seats on the Supreme Court bench in the Fourth Judicial District in the Nov. 6 General Election.

The Fourth Judicial District encompasses 11 counties, including Hamilton.

The Democrat Party has nominated Christine M. Clark, Mark L. Powers, John M. Silvestri and Jeffrey D. Wait. The Republican and Conservative parties have nominated Thomas Buchanan, Felix J. Catena, John T. Ellis and Joseph M. Sise.

The Supreme Court is the highest trial level court in NYS. Each voter may choose four candidates. State Supreme Court justices are elected to 14-year terms.

The Independent Judicial Election Qualification Commission screens and rates candidates for judicial office within the district. Its role is to determine if candidates are “Highly Qualified,” “Qualified” or “Not Qualified.”

Three candidates are rated “Highly Qualified:” Catena, Powers and Sise. The other five are rated “Qualified.”

Of the eight candidates three are from Schenectady County, two from Montgomery County and one each from Saratoga, Franklin and Warren counties.

Supreme Court judges have to set up chambers in the county from which they are elected. Of the 13 Supreme Court justices in the Fourth Judicial District, 12 have chambers south of Warren County.

Only one judge is currently hearing cases in the five northern counties, Judge David Demarest of St. Lawrence County, although Supreme Court judges can be assigned to anywhere in the district.

Judicial candidates are prohibited by law from taking positions on specific issues.

THE CANDIDATES

BUCHANAN, 42, lives in Rotterdam in Schenectady County. He has argued a wide variety of cases as a litigation attorney before both state and federal appellate courts.

He graduated Albany Law School magna cum laude in 1998. He did his undergraduate work at SUNY Albany, graduating in 1993.

CATENA, 55, of Amsterdam in Montgomery County has been a trial judge for 17 years, first as a city court judge for four years and as a county court judge for 10 years.

He has presided over more than 1,000 Supreme Court cases since 2000 and was designated a full-time acting justice of the Supreme Court in 2003.

CLARK, 45, Schenectady, has been a judge for seven years, starting with five years as a city court judge. She has been a family court judge since January 2011. She serves as an acting judge in both county court and Supreme Court.

She graduated Albany Law School at Union University.

ELLIS, 47, of Tupper Lake in Franklin County has been serving the Fourth Judicial District in the Unified Court System as a family court support magistrate based in Saratoga Springs for the past seven years for Saratoga and Warren counties.

Before that he was an assistant district attorney. He graduated Siena College and Albany Law School before joining the Army’s 82d Airborne Division.

He is the only North Country candidate; if elected he would have chambers in Franklin County.

POWERS, 57, of Schenectady has 10 years judicial experience. He is a family court judge and has been a full-time acting Supreme Court justice since 2004. He was the designated judge for the Integrated Domestic Violence Court in Schenectady County and for two years in Essex County.

He graduated Albany Law School summa cum laude.

SILVESTRI, 59, an attorney in Chestertown in Warren County, was admitted to the NYS Bar in 1982 after graduating Pace University’s School of Law in 1981. He lives in Schroon Lake, Essex County.

He has argued cases before the Appellate Division and the state’s highest court, the Court of Appeals, and is also admitted to the federal courts in the Northern, Southern and Eastern districts.

SISE, 49, was elected to the Supreme Court in 1998 and took office Jan. 1, 1999. His term expires at the end of the year.

He graduated Siena College in Albany and, in 1988, Albany Law School at Union University. Before being elected to the Supreme Court he was a county court judge in Montgomery County.

WAIT, 52, has been a city court judge in Saratoga Springs since January 2009. He has served as acting county court judge and supervising judge for the town and village justice courts of Saratoga, Schenectady, Fulton and Montgomery counties since June 2010.

He was an assistant district attorney in Suffolk County for two years.