The legal counsel to the Senate majority leader and a former prosecutor now serving as a probate judge in East Providence are Gov. Dan McKee’s picks to fill two vacancies created on Rhode Island’s top trial court last fall.
McKee on Wednesday named Joanna M. Achille to fill the seat vacated by Superior Court Judge Stephen Nugent, who retired at the end of September. Maria Ferro Deaton, a former prosecutor and now practicing defense attorney in Providence, was selected for the opening created last September by the retirement of Superior Court Associate Justice Melanie Wilk Thunberg.
Their nominations come after scrutiny of McKee’s nominations of former state legislators for judicial roles, and as House Speaker K. Joseph Shekarchi reportedly considers applying for a vacancy on the Rhode Island Supreme Court…