Court of Appeals Judge Jones Dies

By Joel Stashenko, New York Law Journal, 7 November 2012

        Judge Theodore Jones Jr., a member of the state Court of Appeals since 2007, died overnight of an apparent heart attack. He was 68.
        Chief Judge Jonathan Lippman said Jones died either late last night or early this morning after being transported to a hospital near his home in the New York City metropolitan area. He had been in Rochester earlier in the day for an event to promote diversity in the courts, Lippman said. . . .
        Jones was the only black judge of the seven-member Court of Appeals and was chairman of its diversity committee. He also was co-chairman of Lippman's Justice Task Force, which was tasked with finding ways to reduce wrongful convictions.
        Jones was nominated in January 2007 by Eliot Spitzer, the newly elected governor, and confirmed the following month by the state Senate. He had been elected to the Supreme Court from Brooklyn in 1990.        A Brooklyn native, Jones graduated from Hampton University in Virginia in 1965. He served in the U.S. Army from 1967 to 1969, where he was stationed in Vietnam and rose to the rank of captain. He graduated from St. John's University School of Law in 1972.
        Jones' term on the Court of Appeals was to have ended on Dec. 31, 2014, when he would have been forced to step down by mandatory retirement rules. Another member of the court, Carmen Beauchamp Ciparick will retire the bench at the end of this year.
        Jones is survived by his wife of more than 40 years, Joan Sarah Hogans, and two sons, Theodore Jones III, an attorney, and Wesley Jones.