It may be premature to write the obituary for New York’s Supreme Court judicial nomination process, as the state’s chief judge yesterday proposed that only minor changes be made to a system a federal judge recently ruled unconstitutional.

During her annual State of the Judiciary address yesterday in Albany, Judge Judith Kaye recommended the state retain its unique system in which candidates for judgeships to the state’s highest trial court are nominated by conventions of party delegates, not through primary elections.

Her proposals came less than two weeks after U.S. District Judge John Gleeson of Brooklyn called on the Legislature to create a new process for the nomination of Supreme Court candidates. Lawyers have said they will appeal his decision, which described the tight grip local party leaders have over the current nominating process.

Judge Kaye recommended changes to the practices at party nominating conventions across the state. She spoke of giving candidates the right to address delegates, increasing the amount of candidate information provided to delegates, and making terms of office longer for delegates to encourage their independence. Her recommendations followed the suggestions of the Com mission to Promote Public Confidence in Judicial Elections, also called the Feerick Commission.

Judge Gleeson’s ruling threw out the old system of judicial nominating conventions, which he said both excluded voters from the nominating process and barred challenger candidates from a chance at the party’s nomination. In its place he ordered that primaries be temporarily used to nominate candidates for Supreme Court justice positions until the Legislature acts.

That ruling produced “a quiet thud that has reverberated in my mind ever since,” Judge Kaye said, according to a transcript of her speech.

“It is no understatement that public confidence in the judicial branch is at stake,” she said. “While longer-range matters remain under consideration, however, I believe that the Feerick Commission’s recommendations should go forward, because they promise immediate improvement.”

Judge Kaye also criticized the prospect of using primary elections to nominate candidates for Supreme Court onto the November ballot.

“The Commission took a hard look at the principal alternative in this area – direct primaries – but without public financing felt compelled to reject a primary system,” she said. “Nothing is more destructive of public confidence in the impartiality of judges than the need to raise large amounts of money.”

In Albany, Judge Gleeson’s decision has prompted some lawmakers to look for alternatives to the judicial nominating conventions.

“The two alternatives – you can argue which is a better system – would be open primaries or merit selection,” Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz, a member of the Judiciary Committee whose district includes the northwest Bronx, said. “Both are much preferable to the judicial convention system.”

Mr. Dinowitz said he shared Judge Kaye’s concern that primary elections would put a strain on candidates for Supreme Court justice.

“If indeed we have a primary system, then I believe there needs to be public financing and limitations on expenditures,” he said. “I don’t think it is in the interest of anybody for judges to run and have to raise a lot of money.”

Others downplay both that concern and worries that voters in a primary would know next to nothing about Supreme Court candidates they were voting for.