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The North Carolina House of Representatives advanced a bill on Wednesday that allows the state’s chief justice to suspend trial judges without pay during investigations into their conduct.
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Some House Democrats said the provision in House Bill 377 gives one elected official too much power, and that the financial pressure and social impact of being suspended without pay could end a judge’s career, even if they are innocent.
Currently, if judges are suspended during these investigations, they receive pay, lawmakers said.
The chief justice is elected into office, and Republican Paul Newby, who was first elected to the North Carolina Supreme Court in 2004, currently holds that title. The bill would require the North Carolina Judicial Standards Commission to make a recommendation in order for the chief justice to suspend a trial judge during an investigation.
House Speaker Destin Hall told The News & Observer after the vote that the bill text “requires basically immediate, irreparable harm if this judge were to stay in office.”
“You think about things like a judge who was charged with a crime, or whatever, you know, salacious issue happened,” he said. “I don’t think that is something like a judge making a wrong decision in a case, necessarily.”
The House voted 62-45 across party lines to send the bill to Democratic Gov. Josh Stein’s desk. Stein can sign, veto or let the bill become law without his signature after 10 days.
Rep. Carla Cunningham, a former Democrat who registered as unaffiliated following her primary loss in March, voted for the bill.
The state Senate voted last week to advance the bill, and some Democratic senators opposed the provision.
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House Minority Leader Robert Reives, who is also a criminal defense lawyer, said nearly 30% of complaints against judges that go to the Judicial Standards Commission are from criminal defendants.
“It is really, really easy for somebody to jump up and say you did something, and you spend a lot of time, effort, and money to prove that you didn’t, and it can be really serious,” he said. “I talk to folks all the time about this, and that’s the case.”
Hall said after the vote that he appreciated Reives’ comments and understands his point.
“I think the language is such that it’s a pretty high bar to suspend them without pay, and it avoids the situation that has happened before where a judge was suspended, and virtually anybody that looked at it said yeah, they’re not going to be a judge much longer, but they have to continue to be paid with taxpayer dollars,” he said.
Rep. Marcia Morey, a Durham Democrat and a retired chief district court judge, said the bill language allows the Judicial Standards Commission to make a non-public recommendation, and gives the chief justice the power to “ignore it, change it, or modify it any way they would like.”
“That is not open. That is not transparent. That is not the way you do an independent investigation of judges who are coming under the judicial standard review,” she said. “If anything, we should be making judicial standards a more fair, impartial, neutral, independent body.”
North Carolina Supreme Court Justice Anita Earls previously was under investigation by the Judicial Standards Commission for comments she made about the diversity of the Supreme Court’s clerks, The N&O previously reported. The commission ended its investigation and did not recommend any disciplinary action to the state Supreme Court, and the complaint against Earls was dismissed.
The bill also makes tweaks to electronic court filings, as well as to how superior court judges are rotated throughout districts.
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