A month after a federal judge scrapped the system used to nominate state Supreme Court justices, a group of judges filed complaints against the ruling, stating the likelihood of “shattered judicial careers.”

Responding to an order by Judge John Gleeson of the U.S. District Court in Brooklyn that party primaries be used to nominate state judicial candidates, five sitting Supreme Court justices sent letters to the court on Friday, expressing their concern that they or their peers will be ousted from office if they are unable to throw together expensive campaigns in the coming months.

“It is manifestly unfair to change the legal landscape of the present election system with less than nine months’ notice,” a state Supreme Court justice on the appellate division who faces reelection this year, Angela Mazzarelli, wrote. “It is simply not fair or just to surprise anyone, and particularly an incumbent judge with a full docket, in this manner.”

Justice Mazzarelli stated that some candidates such as herself do not have hundreds of thousands of dollars needed to run spirited primary campaigns across sprawling judicial districts. The result of this election cycle could be “shattered judicial careers,” Justice Mazzarelli wrote.

In January, Judge Gleeson found that party leaders controlled New York’s unique system of judicial conventions in which elected delegates bestow the party nomination to candidates for state Supreme Court positions. Associations for state Supreme Court justices, along with the state political party organizations and state election board, are appealing Judge Gleeson’s ruling.

As lawyers seek to convince Judge Gleeson to stay his order that party primaries be used to nominate candidates to the 25 positions open on the State Supreme Court this year, the stakes are high for both the sitting judges and potential candidates who may have been discouraged from running under the judicial convention system.

One of the state Supreme Court Justices whose testimony was filed with the federal court in Brooklyn on Friday, Justice Alice Schlesinger, defended the old system of judicial nominating conventions as democratic in her experience. She stated: “Judge Gleeson’s finding to the contrary is not based on my testimony and is wrong.”

In his ruling in late January, Judge Gleeson attributes Justice Schlesinger’s receipt of the nomination to the fact that her husband was a local party leader.

Justice Schlesinger stated that she worked to garner political support from judicial delegates and party officials in New York County during two unsuccessful bids in the 1990s before her third effort proved successful. She said she received the county party leader’s support only after she had more than a quarter of the convention’s delegates behind her.

A lawyer for the plaintiffs stated that the new testimony does not erase what has emerged in court since the lawsuit was originally filed in 2004.

“The evidence that was submitted over the four-week hearing and the thousands of pages of documentary evidence all point in the same direction, namely that what the judicial convention does is grant a few local party leaders complete control over the selection of the nominees,” the co-counsel for the plaintiffs, Jeremy Creelan, said by telephone.