Governor Murphy is making the last state supreme court pick of his administration tapping John J Hoffman who served as the acting New Jersey attorney general for three years under Governor Chris Christie though he was never officially confirmed to the spot if confirmed Hoffman would be the fifth Justice selected by Murphy out of seven on the top Court the Republican from Burlington County currently serves as general counsel and Senior vice president at Rutter's University his nomination will now go before the State Bar Association and the state senate where Hoffman will likely face questions about his time as New Jersey's Top Cop both fighting organized crime and rolling out body camera requirements for law enforcement but also how he handled several high-profile controversies senior political correspondent David Cruz reports I am incredibly honored and pleased to announce that I will be nominating John Hoffman to be an associate Justice of the New Jersey Supreme Court picking Supreme Court Justices on the state level is rarely as fraud as it can be on the federal level so by the time John Hoffman was introduced today it was clear that he had support on both sides of the aisle John hoffen brings all the attributes that we would want in a a Justice and and most importantly he's sacrificing a person of his intellect his experience his earning capacity this really truly is a impact on his family but John sees the value in public service and is willing to answer the call of the people of the state of New Jersey Hoffman who will replace Justice Lee Solomon who at 70 is aging off of the court has been in public service most of his professional life the fact that the governor noted in his introduction in 2004 he joined the US attorney's office here in Trenton to protect the people of New Jersey as a prosecutor of both violent and white collar crime in 2010 he moved to the state com controller's office to serve as their director of Investigations and two years later he went on to the Department of Law and Public Safety to assume the post of executive Assistant Attorney General in 2013 Governor Christie selected John to serve as acting Attorney General on this very day exactly 11 years ago well the screening process is pretty good cuz you're going to hear early on if somebody's a problem and that's why when we pick judges normally they do okay before the Judiciary Committee because the process is pretty intense before you get there very rarely do you not get through the Judiciary Committee and that's because they've gone through a lot before that critics May quibble with Hoffman's role in the Christi Administration deal that paid Exon Mobile Pennies on the dollar of what could have been a multi-billion doll settlement or his role in arguing against allowing dash cam footage in a case that saw the state Supreme Court rule against the state but the show of support for the nominee which included John Holloway president of ruter where Hoffman most recently served as Chief counsil suggested that was all water under the bridge the nominee got emotional when he spoke to his family especially his wife Mary Jun you better hold it together all right because if you don't hold it together I won't hold you together so Focus right here all right so Mary Jude you've given so much of yourself so I could feed my soul and quench my thirst to give back to this crazy state of ORS of ours everybody owes you a debt of gratitude and I owe you all the love and my heart Hoffman's nomination is expected to get Swift approval Murphy said he hoped Hoffman would be confirmed before the state's high court reconvenes in the fall I'm David Cruz NJ Spotlight news