Governor Spitzer’s decision yesterday to elevate a judge in Brooklyn to the state’s highest court signals Mr. Spitzer’s willingness to break ranks with his supporters in organized labor.

The current opening on the seven-member Court of Appeals provides an early opportunity for Mr. Spitzer to begin his efforts to reshape the court, which grew increasingly conservative under Governor Pataki. The court, which sits in Albany, is expected to issue important rulings on the death penalty and gay marriage in the coming terms. Mr. Spitzer’s choice for the vacancy, Theodore Jones of state Supreme Court in Brooklyn, is unlikely to encounter any resistance from the state Senate, which must confirm him.

Judge Jones was raised from relative obscurity in 2005, when he oversaw the case against the Transit Workers Union for its Christmastime strike. Judge Jones’s decision to rule against the union meant that his candidacy was laden with more political implications than most of the other candidates whom Mr. Spitzer was considering for the Court of Appeals.

A professor at Albany Law School who closely follows the Court of Appeals, Vincent Bonventre, described Mr. Spitzer’s decision to pick Judge Jones as “absolutely fascinating.”

Mr. Spitzer, Mr. Bonventre told The New York Sun, “certainly didn’t pick someone who was a favorite of the constituents of the Democratic Party.”

As attorney general, Mr. Spitzer had asked Judge Jones to hold the president of the TWU, Roger Toussaint, in contempt for not ending the strike. Judge Jones responded by jailing Mr. Toussaint and fining the union $2.5 million. Although his business-like handling of the case drew the praise of court observers, Judge Jones’ decision to impose a million-dollara-day fine made him a target of criticism from union members.

A Brooklyn bus driver and vice president in the Transport Workers Union of America, William Pelletier, said Mr. Spitzer’s choice of nominee was unlikely to sit well with many rank and file union members.

“Most union members are going to feel he should never have gotten the appointment because of what he did to us,” Mr. Pelletier said of Judge Jones.

Still, he said the appointment was unlikely to be more than “a bump in the road” in the union’s relations with Mr. Spitzer.

The strike case aside, the TWU has been a close ally of Mr. Spitzer’s camp in recent years. The father of Lieutenant Governor Paterson, Basil Paterson, served as the union’s representative to the three-member arbitration panel that oversaw contract negotiations last year.

A professor at the School of Public Affairs at Baruch College, Douglas Muzzio, suggested that Mr. Spitzer was signaling his independence from union interests.

“This could be one of Spitzer’s Sister Souljah moments,” Mr. Muzzio said in a telephone interview, likening Mr. Spitzer’s distancing himself from the union to President Clinton’s condemnation of a racially inflammatory remark in the wake of Los Angeles riots. Mr. Clinton’s move was seen as confronting a Democratic interest group, African Americans, in a way that Mr. Spitzer’s move takes on the labor unions.

Judge Jones, now 62, will arrive at the court at a key moment in its history. The court once bore the reputation of being one the more liberal state courts in the nation. It shed that image during Governor Pataki’s long tenure. Four of judges whom Governor Pataki nominated remain on the court today. In the next several terms, the court is expected to flesh out the positions it has staked in landmark rulings on the death penalty and gay marriage.

For instance, this Spring the court is likely to hear a final death penalty appeal from the last remaining inmate on state death row. The court’s ruling in 2004, which struck down the state death penalty on a technicality, left the court with significant room to take up the capital punishment debate anew.

Also, lawyers say the court will have to decide whether to honor same-sex marriages and civil unions that were performed in other states and countries. That issue remains undecided in the wake of last year’s ruling that the state constitution provided no fundamental right for same-sex couples to marry.

Last year, a state commission chose Judge Jones and six other candidates as eligible for the vacancy on the court. The state Senate is expected to confirm Judge Jones. Judge Jones will fill the spot on the Court of Appeals previously held by Albert Rosenblatt, who stepped down last month because of mandatory retirement at age 70.

While handling the TWU strike case, Judge Jones was promoted to be the administrative judge over civil cases in state Supreme Court in Brooklyn. He first became a judge in 1990. As a rookie judge he defied District Attorney Hynes and Mayor Dinkins when he ruled that he would not release the grand jury minutes related to the traffic accident that sparked the 1991 Crown Heights racial riot. In that case, Messrs Dinkins and Hynes argued the release of the minutes would soothe racial tensions and provide answers for why the jury declined to file criminal charges in relation to the traffic accident. Judge Jones kept the minutes secret, ruling that their release could further inflame racial tensions and endanger the grand jury witnesses.

Judge Jones is a Vietnam veteran and left the Army as a captain. “It is an honor to be nominated for this esteemed position,” Judge Jones said yesterday at a press conference in Manhattan. “I am humbled by the trust placed in me and I will do my best to live up to that great responsibility.”

Judge Jones, who is black, will be joining a court whose racial makeup has been a topic of conversation among some members of the city’s legal community. The court has included at least one black member since 1985, until last year, when Governor Pataki replaced Judge George Bundy Smith, who is black, with Judge Eugene Pigott, who is white.

“I am pleased that the court will again begin to reflect some of the diversity that is representative of our state,” Attorney General Cuomo said in a statement sent via email.