Judith J. Gische, a former New York State Supreme Court justice who gamely faced off against both parties during Rudolph W. Giuliani’s fractious and sensational divorce battle, refusing to let the mayor’s lover visit Gracie Mansion and requiring him to disclose his income, died on Sept. 25 in Manhattan. She was 70.
Her death, at a hospital, was confirmed by her husband, Steven A. Schurkman. The cause was complications of myelodysplastic syndromes, which result in blood marrow disorders and blood cancer, her daughter-in-law Rachel Musiker said.
During three decades as a jurist, Justice Gische (rhymes with wish) helped shape matrimonial law. She often urged couples to negotiate agreements on custody, assets and financial support rather than leaving them to the courts to decide after protracted litigation.
She also regarded the welfare of any children as paramount.
“Having started as a Housing Court judge, she had experience dealing with self-represented individuals, which served her well in matrimonial law,” Jacqueline W. Silbermann, a former administrative judge of the Supreme Court, Civil Branch, in Manhattan, said in an interview.
But perhaps nothing could have prepared Justice Gische for the Giuliani divorce case, a juicy tabloid saga that took the public inside the private quarters of the first family of New York. Facing pugnacious lawyers on both sides, Justice Gische didn’t back down.
“I had a job to do,” she later told The New York Times. “If they didn’t like my decision, they appeal my decision.”
In May 2000, Mr. Giuliani had announced at a news conference that he was seeking a separation from his wife, Donna Hanover, the television personality and actress, who learned of his intention to end their 16-year marriage at the event.
Mr. Giuliani, who had been diagnosed with prostate cancer, filed for divorce the following October, arguing that Ms. Hanover had neglected him when he was ill from chemotherapy. They both continued to reside at Gracie Mansion, the mayor’s official residence, until a year later, when Mr. Giuliani moved into a friend’s apartment.
Justice Gische granted Ms. Hanover’s request that their two children have no contact with Mr. Giuliani’s paramour, Judith Nathan, whom he later married and divorced. In effect, the justice said that the welfare of Andrew, then 15, and Caroline, 11, should take precedence over Mr. Giuliani’s romantic pursuits.
The justice also barred Ms. Nathan from Gracie Mansion, where Ms. Hanover lived with the children and where Ms. Nathan, a district sales manager for Bristol Myers Squibb, had been accompanying Mr. Giuliani to public events like receptions and news conferences.
“After that decision, one of the television stations had a poll whether people agreed with it or not,” Justice Gische told The Times in 2002. “I was astonished there would be that kind of fallout.”
She added: “People agreed with me. It didn’t inform my decision.”
Justice Gische also reprimanded the mayor and his lawyer for verbal assaults on Ms. Hanover.
“Although the court has no legal authority to restrain either party from speaking to the media, this does not preclude either of them from using good sense and personal restraint for their sake,” she wrote in her ruling.
Judith Jaye Gische was born on Jan. 22, 1956, in Queens to Harry Gische, an auctioneer and drapery salesman, and Blanche (Lemeshink) Gische, a bookkeeper.
She grew up in Bayside, graduated from Martin Van Buren High School in 1974, enrolled at Queens College and then transferred to the State University of New York at Buffalo, where she earned a bachelor’s degree in 1977. Although she had majored in philosophy, she went on to attend law school because it promised her a career.
In 1980, she received her juris doctor degree from the University at Buffalo School of Law, where she met Mr. Schurkman.
In addition to him, she is survived by their two sons, Zachary and Ethan; a grandson; and a sister, Amy Gische Lyons.
After law school, she worked as a judicial clerk in Albany. She hoped to practice tax law, but switched to real estate because the job prospects were better. After practicing in New York City, she applied to become a Housing Court judge and was appointed to serve in Brooklyn in 1990.
She was elected to the city’s Civil Court as a Democrat on the Upper East Side in 1993, when Republicans still held sway there, and served as an acting State Supreme Court justice in Manhattan and the Bronx from 2004 to 2008, when she was elected to the State Supreme Court. She was named an associate justice of the Appellate Division in Manhattan in 2012.
Justice Gische served on panels that ruled on more than 6,000 appeals, and wrote 38 of those decisions. In 2023, she retired from the bench and joined the Manhattan law firm Blank Rome.
While the Giuliani divorce case made her a boldface name, she rendered influential decisions on other matters, too.
In 2006, she upheld a street photographer’s First Amendment right to take photos of people in public places without their permission — the price, she said, that everyone must be prepared to pay for a society in which information and opinion flowed freely.
In 2012, she ruled that the city had failed to follow its own rules in imposing strict regulations on homeless people seeking shelter.
Reflecting on what would endure as her most high-profile case, Justice Gische told The Times that working with such “intensely strong personalities” had been “remarkably challenging,” but thanked the couple for heeding her advice to resolve the case privately. They had reached a settlement before a pending trial was to begin.
“I wish you the best of luck in your future endeavors,” she told them, “and I hope I don’t see you in my court again.”
She didn’t, at least not on a matrimonial matter. But in 2021, she served on a panel that suspended Mr. Giuliani’s law license after he falsely claimed that the 2020 presidential election had been rigged against President Trump.
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