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NC’s top judicial official is behind ‘political hit job,’ Democrats say

North Carolina’s highest-ranking judicial official is personally behind the push for an investigation into a fellow justice, a state lawmaker claimed Wednesday, calling it a politically motivated attack.

Supreme Court Justice Anita Earls was recently put under investigation, WRAL reported last month, for criticizing racial and gender biases within the state courts system. Earls, a Democrat, is the only Black justice on the court. She’s now suing to stop the investigation, saying it violates her First Amendment rights. Earls’ lawsuit claims she was accused of violating a rule for judges against impugning the integrity of the courts.

The identity of whoever initiated that investigation into Earls is officially a secret. But state Rep. Abe Jones — a Raleigh Democrat who previously served for 17 years as a judge — said at a news conference Wednesday that Supreme Court Chief Justice Paul Newby, a Republican, is the one who pushed for the investigation: .

A spokesman for Newby and the courts system didn’t immediately provide a comment when reached, nor did a spokesman for the North Carolina Republican Party. Past requests for comment to Newby, about the Earls investigation, have also gone unanswered.

Asked how he was certain Newby was behind the investigation, since the courts system is not allowed to publicly identify the identity of whoever filed complaints against Earls, Jones said he had sources but wouldn’t identify them. “Rest assured: What I told you is accurate,” he said.

Jones was one of three dozen Black state lawmakers and supporters who gathered at the legislature Wednesday to say they know exactly why Earls is being investigated: Conservatives are making an example of the state’s most powerful judges, they said, to frighten other lawyers and judges away from addressing systemic racism in a state with a long history of it.

“When folks in the public see that she’s being targeted because of that, think about what that does to a person,” said Rep. Allen Buansi, a Chapel Hill Democrat and attorney. “I can easily see a situation in which, as a result of what’s been done to Justice Earls, a Black lawyer or lawyer of color goes to court — and they think twice about something they say on behalf of their client.”

The investigation could result in no action or a minor rebuke, or it could escalate up to Earls being removed and permanently banned from the court.

“This is a political hit job on Justice Earls,” Sen. Mujtaba Mohammed, a Charlotte Democrat and former public defender.

Newby has his own history of criticizing fellow judges, which Jones pointed to on Wednesday.

In 2019, when Newby was at the time the only Republican on the state’s highest court, he gave a speech criticizing all of the other justices as far-left political activists. Newby also singled out Earls specifically, telling the audience that her election to the court just months earlier had worried him so much he lost sleep over it. Earls was a prominent civil rights attorney prior to becoming a judge.

“He makes comments about political things,” Jones said of Newby. “No one tries to stop him. So why does he want to stop her?”

Politics and the Supreme Court

The Judicial Standards Commission is in charge of investigating all complaints against judges in North Carolina. Earls’ attorney, Press Millen, said Wednesday there have been no major updates recently on either the lawsuit or the state’s investigation.

The commission’s previous executive director announced her sudden resignation last year shortly after publishing a memo that indirectly suggested Newby was engaged in political activities that may have violated judicial ethics rules.

The new executive director overseeing the Earls investigation was appointed by a Republican judge who serves as the commission chair, at Newby’s discretion. The director, Brittany Pinkham, previously told WRAL she couldn’t comment on the investigation. She emphasized that the commission is “a nonpartisan investigative body.”

Republicans criticized Democrats of politicizing the courts when they controlled a majority in the state Supreme Court from 2017 until earlier this year. Now, Democrats accuse the new GOP majority of the same.

The Earls investigation, some Democratic lawmakers said Wednesday, is just another part of the broader theme that began earlier this year with a controversial decision to undo two recent rulings on major voting rights cases that had gone against Republican state lawmakers. The new GOP majority also reversed other recent precedent, from the Democratic-controlled court, on criminal justices reforms that had acknowledged systemic racism.

“It’s a threat to our government,” said Sen. Gladys Robinson, a Greensboro Democrat. “We need to acknowledge what is going on: The Supreme Court is denying the rights of all the citizens of the state of North Carolina.”

Republican lawmakers have dismissed such claims as overblown rhetoric from Democrats who are just mad they can no longer convince voters to keep Democratic judges in power.

“What we heard today was false, inflammatory rhetoric from activists struggling to cope with their preferred candidates losing 14 of the last 14 statewide judicial races,” said a spokesman for Senate leader Phil Berger last week, after a similar press conference by Earls supporters.

Berger and other GOP leaders are now pushing forward with another major change to elections laws that critics fear will further cement the party’s control of state government, WRAL has reported. It’s based on a similar plan that was ruled unconstitutional just five years ago.

Berger told reporters in June he hopes the Supreme Court’s new GOP majority, which includes his son, Justice Phil Berger Jr., will overturn that precedent and allow the changes to go into effect — potentially in time for the 2024 elections.