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Former state Supreme Court Justice Lawrence Bracke Former Justice Bracken, who once led the Second Appellate Division in Brooklyn, has died from Parkinson's Disease. He retired from the bench in 2001. Photo Credit: Family photo |
Former
state Supreme Court Justice Lawrence J. Bracken, who as an appeals court judge
played a key role in the 1983 Baby Jane Doe parental-rights case, has died.
Bracken,
a longtime resident of Setauket and East Setauket, died Wednesday from
complications of Parkinson’s disease at the Long Island State Veterans Home in
Stony Brook, where he lived. He was 84.Bracken served on the state Supreme
Court from 1973 to 1981, when he was appointed to the Second Appellate Division
in Brooklyn. He served on that court until 2001, when he stepped down at the
mandatory state retirement age of 70.
In
October 1983, Bracken temporarily blocked a lower court decision that had
ordered surgery for a 10-day-old Long Island girl born with spina bifida,
identified in court papers as Baby Jane Doe. The girl’s parents had opposed the
surgery.
The
full appellate court later ruled in the parents’ favor, and the surgery was not
performed. had been a Suffolk County assistant district attorney in the 1960s
and also worked in private practice with his late brother, Edward P. Bracken
Jr.
Lawrence
Bracken also was a volunteer firefighter and former Setauket Fire District
commissioner. Bracken and his wife, Mary, who survives him, were married for 59
years.
Bracken’s
daughter, Mary E. Hill of Pembroke, Massachusetts, said he took the family on
history-oriented trips to , Virginia, and Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. He also
enjoyed bodysurfing at Cupsogue Beach County Park in Westhampton Beach and
taught his children to care for the underprivileged, she said.
“He
was my first and best teacher,” Hill said. “He always taught us that no matter
who you are in life, you should be treated with respect, and that’s the way he
treated everybody.”
In
addition to his wife and daughter, Mary E. Hill, Bracken is survived by three
other daughters, Clare F. Boothe of Duluth, Georgia, Anne M. DeNicola of St.
James, and Patricia E. Ostuni of Northport; three sons, Lawrence J. Bracken II
of Alpharetta, Georgia, Christopher P. Bracken of Denver, and Michael LeStrange
of Burlington, Vermont; a brother, Donald Bracken, of Southold; a sister,
Patricia Kilton of Stratford, Connecticut; 15 grandchildren; and six
great-grandchildren.
Visiting hours are 2 to 4 p.m. and 7 to 9 p.m.
Monday at Bryant Funeral Home in East Setauket. A funeral Mass will be said at
10:45 a.m. Tuesday at St. James Roman Catholic Church in East Setauket,
followed by burial at St. James Cemetery
http://www.newsday.com/long-island/lawrence-j-bracken-dead-former-state-appeals-court-judge-was-84-1.11305930http://www.newsday.com/long-island/lawrence-bracken-dead-former-state-
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