The state Senate has confirmed Rowan Wilson as the state’s first Black chief judge — and the region’s state senator is unhappy with the choice.

State Sen. George Borrello, R-Sunset Bay, spoke on the Senate opposing Wilson’s nomination. Many Republicans opposed Wilson’s nomination after news broke this weekend that Wilson had written the Court of Appeals’ opinion overturning a rape conviction. The judge cited the local prosecutor’s years-long delay in pursuing the case that resulted in charges not being filed for more than three years with a conviction coming six years after the attack. The man in the case was released four years before his sentence was to end.

Borrello also cited Wilson’s dissenting opinion in the June 2022 Court of Appeals decision in the case of In the Matter of Nonhuman Rights Project, Inc., v. Breheny. In that case, the Court of Appeals ruled that Happy the elephant cannot be considered a person being illegally confined to the Bronx Zoo. The 5-2 decision by the state Court of Appeals was watched across the country as a test of the boundaries of applying human rights to animals.

The zoo and its supporters warned that a win for advocates at the Nonhuman Rights Project could open the door to more legal actions on behalf of animals, including pets, farm animals and other species in zoos. Advocates argued Happy is an autonomous, cognitively complex elephant worthy of the right reserved in law for “a person.”

“Some people would say that manufacturing is dead in New York state, but, not so with Rowan Wilson. He has been able to manufacture things in his time as a judge, manufactured rights that don’t exist. He’s manufactured laws that don’t exist,” Borrello said. “He is basically treated our Constitution and our laws as an Etch-a-Sketch that you can just shake up and start over. That’s what we heard in the release of a rapist. He manufactured a right that didn’t exist and then, was told that, he was, in fact, in violation of that right and that’s why he was released. He wanted to release an elephant. Now, I’m a big fan of animal rights but he wanted to give this elephant human rights. AN elephant that spent 40 years living quite comfort bring in a zoo. He wanted to apply the human right, of him being able to be released.”

As the Associated Press reported, Wilson has been an associate judge of the Court of Appeals, New York’s highest court, since 2017. Hochul tapped him earlier this month to lead the seven-member high court and oversee the state’s judicial system. The confirmation vote caps months of conflict between Hochul and her fellow Democrats in control of the Senate over the direction of the court after Democrats rejected Hochul’s first choice, Judge Hector LaSalle.

LaSalle was criticized by liberal senators for several decisions they disagreed with while LaSalle was an appeals judge. He was rejected after a court fight between the Senate and Hochul. Borrello argued in favor of LaSalle’s nomination in February and called Tuesday for Democrats to nominate a judge more like LaSalle.

“We need prudent jurists that actually judge the constitution and the law not based on whatever the progressives like or the liberals like or the special interests like,” Borrello said. “That’s not the role of the judiciary. The role of the judiciary is to judge the law and the Constitution. This is not who is going to take the role of chief judge today. It is very concerning to me. It should be concerning to all of us.”

Republicans were chastised by Sen. Jessica Ramos, D-Jackson Heights. Ramos, a rape survivor, criticized GOP lawmakers for using Rowan’s decision in People v. Regan as “political theater.”

“You see, I want my rapist to see justice,” But due process is justice and it is very important that we respect the procedures that we’ve actually outlined in our Constitution and that respect everybody’s individual right to due process to be heard and to be seen by the court fairly,” Ramos said. “I can’t believe that you guys used this political theatre. I understand that you’re in the minority. I Understand that getting these clips so that you can post them on social media is very important for your constituents to see. but what a false sense of outrage when you actually don’t help us to enact any actual change. It is a joke and deeply offensive to me personally.”