Many of my clients and friends have asked me whether our justice and election systems are broken. My entire adult life has been lived in North Carolina so I will share what I know from my experience here. For you to evaluate whether my opinion is informed you need to know a bit of my political / legal history.

I didn’t vote in the first election for which I was eligible. I was in infantry training in 1968 at Camp Geiger (Lejeune). I was discharged in 1970 and registered as a Republican. I didn’t like the Democrat agenda of acid, abortion and amnesty. I attended Michigan State studying criminal justice from 1970 to 1972. I was a conservative political activist. I protested against Jane Fonda and the Black Panthers. I ran for campus political office.

I worked in the justice system for 51 years. In the summer of 1972 I was an intern for the District Attorney of Guilford County. Doug Albright was an elected Democrat. Fall of 1972 I made my first political contribution – $100 to Jim Holshouser. That was a fortune to me. I married Dottie Mills in 1973. She worked!!

From 1973 to 1975 I worked during law school through the School of Government on Pattern Jury Instructions in Criminal Cases for the Conference of Superior Court Judges. My professor, Arnold Loewy, was the expert on criminal law and a liberal Democrat. I had helped to begin Christian Legal Society at Chapel Hill with my friend, Joe Knott, (father of Congressman Brad Knott). Although Mr. Loewy was a liberal Democrat and Jewish, I was his assistant. The committee included Judge James Exum, a Superior Court Judge from Greensboro. On the recommendation of Professor Loewy, a Democrat, to newly elected Justice James Exum, a Democrat, I was hired as his research assistant during his first full year in office at the Supreme Court. He later became Chief Justice. He knew I was a conservative Republican. We worked together well. He is a fine, honorable man.

After that year I came to Apex to work with Carl Holleman, a distant relative by marriage. He was an active Democrat, having served on the Wake County Board of Elections. His wife was head of the Democratic Wake County Women’s group. He knew I was a conservative Republican lawyer when he hired me. I became chair of Wake County Right to Life. I put out yard signs for pro-life Republican and Democrat representatives. There were some then.

In 1984 I was Co-chair of Bill Cobey’s congressional campaign. That summer there was a dearth of adequate candidates to run for a newly redistricted State Senate seat. One morning, Dave Flaherty, State GOP Chair, begged me to file by noon that day. Dave told me that if I would fill the ticket I could withdraw in the first 30 days. The party could replace me with a real candidate. My boss was not in the office so I couldn’t ask his permission. I filed with five minutes to spare. Unfortunately (or fortuitously) another GOP candidate filed against me. I had a primary. If you had a primary you could not withdraw. I did not want to lose. I competed in the four person GOP primary (for 3 seats) and came in first. We lost in the general. Again I came in first among the three Republicans. I realized that if I had known to run for the House I could have won. That’s how I got my start in politics.

A majority of my legal practice was real estate, wills, trusts and contracts. I had significant litigation practice. After my 49th year as a licensed attorney I’ve had about 50 jury trials, several hundreds of lawsuits, and several dozen appeals to the Appellate courts.

I ran for elective office 14 times. At one point I was 1-6 but decided to try one more time. I then won seven in a row and finished 8-6 – more losses than Abraham Lincoln. I lost elections twice to the Court of Appeals, twice to the State Senate, and twice to the State House.

I was known to be active in the party, at every level. I served on the state platform
committee about 10 times, seven as chair. I presided over one state convention and was
parliamentarian for several others.

During my time practicing law, Wake County was dominated by Democrat judges and attorneys. From 1994 until 2000, I was the unofficial recruiter for Superior Court judges and Appellate judges. I had to know the political leanings of judges, both Republican and Democrat.

I served 16 years in the House, the last 10 of which as Republican Leader of the House, both minority and majority, and the last four as Speaker Pro Tem.

This lengthy background is necessary so that you understand my conclusions about whether the justice and election systems are broken.

The justice system is not broken. It has problems. Criminal and civil cases take too long. In 2013, I assembled a working group of 50 “stakeholders” of all parties. We proposed, and had passed, dozens of recommendations to speed up the process. That helped. More needs to be done.

I never witnessed any corruption. Not once did I have any credible information that corruption existed. Out of the last thousand judges in North Carolina, one or two have been removed from office for corruption and others have been removed for other reasons. It would not surprise me if there were a dozen of the last 1000 who were corrupt. We didn’t know who they were. The vast majority of our judges are honest and diligent.

What about bias? I was well-known as a conservative active Republican, appearing the vast majority of times before Democrat judges. I never felt one time that when I lost it was because of my party or ideology. Nor if I won was it for that reason, not once. Some of the judges were just wrong in their legal rulings.

Twice I ran against Democrats for the Court of Appeals, 1998 and 2000. Each time I got about 49% of the vote and lost because I had fewer votes than they did. I also ran in 2000 with a Republican who won with 51%. We drove around the state campaigning together. A couple of years later I appeared before a panel of the Court of Appeals that was comprised of those same 3 judges. One of the Democrat judges ruled in my favor. The Republican and one Democrat ruled against me. Because of the dissent by one Democrat judge I took it to the Supreme Court where we won the case for parental rights. (In Re: Stumbo)

Are the judges in North Carolina conflicted? I doubt it. Legal conflicts in North Carolina are defined quite precisely. The fact that a judge has a relative in some position is unlikely to ever constitute a conflict. Nor would a de minimis contribution to a candidate not involved in a case.

Are legal cases in North Carolina rigged? I doubt it. I have had clients tell me they suspected bribery, but none could ever give me a usable tip to pursue.

What about the legislature? 170 people can’t come to Raleigh year after year without having some criminals hidden amongst them. As Republican Leader for six years I had the unpleasant task of asking two Republican House members to promptly resign – sharing with them the real-world consequences of not resigning. Some of the Democrat leaders have had the same unpleasant task of demanding that members resign or not run again. I served on the House ethics panel that had the unpleasant task of recommending that Rep. Thomas Wright be expelled for real corruption about 10 years ago.

Compared to the reports of corruption in some other state legislatures, my opinion is that, in a technical sense, the North Carolina legislature is squeaky clean. What is not good is the extreme amount of cash that comes to legislative caucuses and to individual members with expectations that they will do something they were not otherwise planning to do.

The Election System is not broken.

I participated in 14 of my own election and then, as Republican Leader, for six years had a responsibility to be aware of what was happening in dozens of other races. I was not happy with some of the results. One of my losses was very close. I ran against a female Democrat and a male Libertarian. He was more conservative than most Libertarians. By taking 4% of the male conservative vote he cost me that election. I was not happy with my other losses. But I never had any reason to blame the counting of votes by the election machinery.

I have taken a detailed look at the 2020 and 2022 elections, both statewide and nationally. You can read my analyses in depth on these links. In 2020 Republicans in North Carolina did great, even though the election machinery was all in the hands of majority Democrats—controlled by Governor Cooper. Chief Justice Newby won by a smidgen. If Democrats were planning to steal one they missed their chance. In 2022 North Carolina did great again. We had a red wave, although much of the country did not. The election machinery was still in the hands of Democrats at the state and local level.

There are always going to be close races. With Democrats in control of the election machinery from 2018 through 2023 there have been no serious issues with the vote count.

In 2024 we will have, for the first significant election, voter ID. That will help instill confidence in the results. Voter ID is important. Lack of voter ID has not caused a change in result in any recent known North Carolina election.

North Carolina’s Justice and Election systems are not broken, rigged, or corrupt.

Letters: Justice Systems Broken