HUDSON COUNTY – Gov. Christopher Christie has nominated three Hudson County attorneys to fill seats in the Superior Court. Mirtha Ospina of Hoboken, Joseph A. Turula of Jersey City and John A. Young, Jr. of Secaucus were nominated to the state Senate on May 14 to fill Superior Court judge seats.
Ospina currently serves as assistant prosecutor in Middlesex County, and has served in a variety of court posts since 1998. In 2001 she served as Grand Jury Section Assistant Prosecutor, prior to which she served as an assistant prosecutor in juvenile cases. She had a solo practice in Edison in the late 1990s, prior to which she served as judicial law clerk for two civil court judges in Middlesex County and judicial intern for a Union County Superior Court in the early 1990s. A member of the New Jersey State Bar Association, the Hispanic Bar association and the Hudson County Bar Association, she recent served in an advisory capacity for the Center for Hispanic Policy, Research and Development Committee.
Turula has been involved in local politics, running for state Assembly in 2010 in the 31st District as a Republican. He has served as a trustee of Jersey City Free Public Library Foundation. He is a member of Our Lady of Czestochowa Catholic Church in Jersey City and is a former councilman in Pompton Lakes.
Turula, who unsuccessfully challenged U.S. Rep. Albio Sires in the 2008 election, is an attorney at Garcia and Turula and a former prosecutor.
Young has been a managing partner in the firm Willis & Young P.C. since 1995 and served as a judicial clerk from 1992 to 1993 He is a member of the Hudson County Bar Association and the New Jersey Bar Association