THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, October 25, 1996 TAG: 9610250557
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B2 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY SCOTT MOONEYHAM, ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: RALEIGH LENGTH: 81 lines
Fewer than 7 percent of people can name even one of them, but they oversee what some people say is the most powerful branch of government.
Voters will once again select judges to run the state's courts when they go to the polls on Nov. 5. For most, it will be a guessing game.
Up for grabs are two seats on the seven-member state Supreme Court, one seat on the 12-member Court of Appeals and 17 Superior Court seats. Voters will also decide who fills 105 District Court seats.
In the Supreme Court races, incumbent Chief Justice Burley Mitchell, a Democrat, faces Republican Raymond A. Warren, a Superior Court judge from Charlotte. Associate Justice Sarah Parker, a Democrat, is opposed by Republican Carl L. Tilghman, a Beaufort lawyer.
Mitchell is a former Wake County district attorney and secretary of Crime Control and Public Safety. He was a member of the Court of Appeals from 1977 to 1979. Gov. James B. Hunt Jr. appointed him to the Supreme Court in 1982, and named him chief justice in 1995.
His opponent, Warren, is a former state legislator and was minority whip of the state House from 1986 until 1988. He served briefly as a Superior Court judge in 1990, when he was appointed by former Gov. James B. Martin, and then was elected to the position in 1994.
Parker has served on the Supreme Court since 1993. Before her term there, she was a member of the Court of Appeals for seven years. Before that appointment, she practiced law for 16 years in Charlotte.
Her opponent, Tilghman, has practiced law since 1969, when he was a military lawyer in the Army. After leaving the Army, he was U.S. attorney for eastern North Carolina in 1976-77. He entered private practice in 1977 and has also served as a Carteret County commissioner.
In the Court of Appeals race, Judge Linda McGee, a Democrat, is opposed by Greensboro lawyer Betty Pearce, a Republican.
McGee was appointed to the court by Gov. Hunt in 1995 after 17 years in private practice. She founded a dispute resolution center in Boone and has worked with a shelter for battered women.
Pearce has practiced law in Greensboro for 16 years. She is a former chairwoman of the Guilford County Board of Elections and chairwoman of the North Carolina Lawyer Referral Service.
Most voters won't know of the candidates' impressive resumes when they step into the voting booth, said John G. Medlin Jr., chairman of Wachovia Corp. and head of a commission studying the state's courts.
``I call our present system judicial roulette,'' Medlin said. ``People look at the ballot, choose someone - and they don't know who they are.''
Voters know little about the judicial candidates partly because the state Code of Judicial Conduct bars them from making election promises. It also prohibits candidates from stating their views on disputed legal or political issues.
Essentially, the code limits candidates to talking about their qualifications.
Some critics say the problems with judicial elections could be solved by removing the provisions in the code and letting judges go at it like other political candidates.
Appointing the state's judges, however, is the approach favored by Medlin and his fellow members of the Commission for the Future of Justice and Courts in North Carolina. They'll make their recommendation in December, with their final report.
The appointments would be made based on recommendations by committees of lawyers, clerks of court, and legislative and governor's office appointees. The governor would choose judges from three recommendations made by the committees.
Judges would face retention elections after a set term, with voters deciding whether the judge continues or should be replaced.
Medlin doesn't expect an appointment system to be adopted anytime soon.
Changing the court systems would require an amendment to the state Constitution. And, before that could happen, the General Assembly would have to agree to the changes and then submit them for voter approval in a referendum.
``Our goal is that we hope that this can be debated and enacted, so that this can be in place by the turn of the century,'' Medlin said.
So, for at least a while, voters will continue to go to the polls, look at the ballot, scratch their heads and hope they are voting for the best judge.
KEYWORDS: JUDICIAL RACE NORTH CAROLINA 1996 by CNB