Presiding Justice A. Franklin Mahoney was born in Troy on August 13, 1921, where he attended LaSalle Institute and thereafter Albany Academy. His college career at Yale University was interrupted by three years of service as an officer in the Marine Corps during World War II. Following discharge from the military, he was graduated from Yale in 1947 and entered Albany Law School, graduating in 1950. He practiced law in Troy with his brother Justin, who was later to become Bankruptcy Judge for the Northern District of New York. In 1956, Presiding Justice Mahoney was elected Troy City Treasurer and re-elected in 1959. In 1964, he began his judicial career when he was elected Rensselaer County Surrogate. Four years later, in 1968, Presiding Justice Mahoney was elected to the Supreme Court for the Third Judicial District, where he served on the trial bench until 1976. That year, Gov. Carey appointed him an associate justice of the Appellate Division, Third Department. In 1978, he was appointed Presiding Justice, a position he held until December 1991. Presiding Justice Mahoney was responsible for establishing the Appellate Division as a “hot bench”, a panel of judges who have read the legal briefs and familiarized themselves with the cases before attorneys make oral arguments before them. He continued on the Appellate Division as a certificated justice until the end of November 1993. Presiding Justice Mahoney died in October 1994.
A. Franklin Mahoney
