INDEGLIA

PROVIDENCE –– Governor Carcieri intends to interview each of the five finalists for an open seat on the state Supreme Court before making the appointment, his spokeswoman Amy Kempe said Friday. However, he may wait until the new year to make his selection, she said.

The Judicial Nominating Commission on Tuesday selected five finalists for the position of associate justice on the Rhode Island Supreme Court, a seat that became vacant when Paul A. Suttell was promoted to chief justice in July.

The finalists are: Superior Court Judges Judith Colenback Savage and Gilbert V. Indeglia and lawyers John A. “Terry” MacFadyen III, Samuel D. Zurier and Sandra A. Lanni.

Under Rhode Island law, the governor is required to fill the vacancy within 21 days after the commission sends him the finalists. But Kempe said Carcieri views the 21-day time frame as merely advisory and said that with the holidays approaching, it’s unclear whether he will have the time to make his choice in 2009. Kempe said Carcieri has made it a point to interview every candidate submitted to him as a finalist for a judgeship and that he intends to schedule individual interviews for the candidates for the Supreme Court.

Currently, the state’s highest court is hearing appeals with just four instead of five justices, which has increased the workload for individual justices. This could lead to a time lag in the court’s decision-making since each justice is currently being assigned more cases to write than is usual.

But there may be strategic reasons for the governor delaying making a new appointment. State law requires the House and Senate to take up a Supreme Court nomination within seven days of receiving it from the governor. If either chamber fails within 60 days after the submission to confirm the nominee, the governor is then required to appoint someone else to fill the vacancy.

The legislature is on recess until the first week of January so it would have to come back into special session to take up a nominee if it wanted to do so before the end of the year.

tbreton@projo.com