US’ first female Muslim judge found dead in Hudson River

[EC]

NEW YORK, April 13 — A groundbreaking black jurist who became the first Muslim woman to serve as a US judge was found dead in New York’s Hudson River yesterday, police said.

Sheila Abdus-Salaam, a 65-year-old associate judge of New York’s highest court, was found floating off Manhattan’s west side at about 1:45pm EDT (1545 GMT), a police spokesman said.

Police pulled Abdus-Salaam’s fully clothed body from the water and she was pronounced dead at the scene. Her family identified her and an autopsy would determine the cause of death, the spokesman said.

Abdus-Salaam, a native of Washington, DC, became the first African-American woman appointed to the Court of Appeals when Democratic Governor Mario Cuomo named her to the state’s high court in 2013.

“Justice Sheila Abdus-Salaam was a trailblazing jurist whose life in public service was in pursuit of a more fair and more just New York for all,” Cuomo said in a statement.

- See more at: http://www.themalaymailonline.com/world/article/us-first-female-muslim-judge-found-dead-in-hudson-river#sthash.IiSphK3d.dpuf

[Frank Cannon]

Looks like an honor killing to me. Let Sharia Law handle it.

BTW...

when Democratic Governor Mario Cuomo named her to the state’s high court in 2013.

Mario hasn't been Gov of NY for decades.

[EC]

First African-American Female Judge On New York's Top Court Found Dead

Associate Judge Sheila Abdus-Salaam, the first African-American woman to be appointed to New York's Court of Appeals, was found dead on Wednesday in the Hudson River.

She had been reported missing from her home in Harlem.

The New York Times reports:

    "Officers with the New York Police Department's Harbor Unit responded about 1:45 p.m. to a report of a person floating by the shore near West 132nd Street in Upper Manhattan.

    "Judge Abdus-Salaam, 65, was taken to a pier on the Hudson River and was pronounced dead by paramedics shortly after 2 p.m.

    "The police were investigating how she ended up in the river, and it was not clear how long Judge Abdus-Salaam, who lived nearby in Harlem, had been missing.

    "There were no signs of trauma on her body, the police said. She was fully clothed.

    "A law enforcement official said investigators had found no signs of criminality. Her husband identified her body."

Abdus-Salaam became the first female Muslim to serve as a U.S. judge when she joined the New York State Supreme Court in 1994, according to Zakiyyah Muhammad, the founding director of the Institute of Muslim American Studies, as quoted in The Times.

More: http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/04/13/523704631/first-african-american-female-judge-on-new-yorks-top-court-found-dead

Interesting the different headline NPR uses ....

[Wingnut]

No miracle on the Hudson.

[catfish1957]

No miracle on the Hudson.

Whadya Gonna Do.

[Cripplecreek]

The water is still mighty cold here in the north. Someone that age falling in can easily have a heart attack from the shock of it. I read a story from here in Michigan the other day of a guy falling into a creek and "drowning" in waist deep water.

[mountaineer]

She's responsible for some questionable rulings (i.e., political rather than based on the law) over the years.

... On the court, Judge Abdus-Salaam was among the most reliable and steadfast liberal voices, regularly siding with vulnerable parties — the poor, impoverished immigrants and people with mental illnesses, for instance — against more powerful and established interests. She also tended to lean toward injured parties who brought claims of misconduct, fraud or breach of contract against wealthy corporations.  ...

Last summer, Judge Abdus-Salaam wrote an important decision, Matter of Brooke S.B. v. Elizabeth A.C.C., that expanded the definition of what it means to be a parent, overturning a previous ruling. For 25 years, the court had held that the nonbiological parent in a same-sex couple had no standing to seek custody or visitation rights after a breakup.

But Judge Abdus-Salaam wrote that the previous ruling had become “unworkable when applied to increasingly varied familial relationships.” In a tightly reasoned decision, she determined that nonbiological parents did have standing to seek custody if they showed “by clear and convincing evidence that all parties agreed to conceive a child and to raise the child together.” ...

Eric H. Holder Jr., the former United States attorney general, was classmates with Judge Abdus-Salaam at Columbia Law School and sang her praises at her swearing-in ceremony in 2013, according to The Associated Press.

It was clear that she was intelligent, serious and witty, he said at the time, according to The A.P. But she could have fun, too: “Sheila could boogie,” he said.

A judge isn't supposed to "side" with anyone but the Constitution and the law. This woman's bias seemed to show in every case. And a friend of Holder, too!
More at NYT via MSN

[Wingnut]

Cops say she probably croaked herself.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/04/13/us/sheila-abdus-salaam-judge-hudson-river/

[skeeter]

Now Judge Abdus-Salaam has something in common with Jim Nabors.