NC Supreme Court

Mifepristone Bans and Zombie Laws: NC LGBTQs Were a Canary in the Coal Mine for Abortion Restrictions

Submitted by teddyrooseveltp... on

Recently, Texas federal judge Matthew J. Kacsmaryk ruled in favor of plaintiffs from the Religious Right that distribution of the abortion pill mifepristone violated an 1837 law almost forgotten today, the Comstock Act.

If you’re a part of the LGBTQ community, you would have seen this coming. We saw, first hand, how this outdated 19th century relic, mostly overturned by SCOTUS and other courts, was used to intimidate the LGBTQ community as recently as a decade ago.

NC Supreme Court pulls the plug on Voter ID

Submitted by BlueNC on

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A transparent attempt to suppress the African-American vote:

The North Carolina Supreme Court on Friday struck down a state voter identification law, ruling that Republican lawmakers acted unconstitutionally to minimize Democratic voters’ power with a law that intentionally discriminated against Black voters.

“We hold that the three-judge panel’s findings of fact are supported by competent evidence showing that the statute was motivated by a racially discriminatory purpose,” Associate Justice Anita Earls wrote for the majority in the 89-page ruling. “The provisions enacted … were formulated with an impermissible intent to discriminate against African American voters in violation of the North Carolina Constitution.”

No doubt Republicans will crank out another bill to take its place, but the NC House will be able to sustain Governor Cooper's inevitable Veto of such. Barring any Legislative shenanigans by the GOP, which we can (must) also expect. Walking on this anti-democracy high-wire is becoming exhausting, to say the least. They also put the final nail into the coffin for the NC GOP's last gerrymandering effort, setting the stage for another map-drawing fiasco:

Please vote for Lucy Inman for NC Supreme Court

Submitted by scharrison on

Her opponent Richard Dietz doesn't believe in gun control:

It is not often that one has the opportunity to hear a talk by someone who has argued before the Supreme Court of the United States. Through the email newsletter of a local gun store and range, Pro Shots, I was fortunate to learn of such an opportunity here in my home town on May 1st. Richard Dietz, a local attorney, spoke at the monthly meeting of the Forsyth County Republican Party about his experience arguing on behalf of the petitioner in Abramski v. United States (No. 12-1493) in January 2014.

Bolding mine, because yes, that is Ted Budd's gun store/range. This blog was written two years before Budd was groomed by Club For Growth and squeezed through the 2016 Republican Primary for Congress with 20% of the vote. Dietz was appointed to the (NC) Court of Appeals later that year (2014) by Pat McCrory, and he's been riding that seat ever since. Here's more on the Abramski case:

Newby moves quickly to take over court system

Submitted by scharrison on

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Putting McCrory's darling boy in charge of the courts:

State Supreme Court Chief Justice Paul Newby appointed Andrew T. Heath to lead the state’s Administrative Office of the Courts, according to a North Carolina Judicial Branch press release today. Heath served as a superior court judge with statewide jurisdiction, where he heard both civil and criminal cases. He replaces McKinley Wooten Jr., who was appointed by former Chief Justice Cheri Beasley as the interim director of the Administrative Office of the Courts in 2019 and later took the permanent spot.

Then-Gov. Pat McCrory appointed Heath for a five-year term as a special superior court judge in December 2016 to fill a vacancy, right before leaving office following his loss to Gov. Roy Cooper in the election.

And that appointment was a plum offered to Heath because of his faithful service (dog) behavior. Apparently Newby is "cleaning house" at the admin offices of the court system, including experienced attorneys:

Bias has no place in NC's criminal justice system

Submitted by scharrison on

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Chief Justice Cheri Beasley plants a seed on her way out:

Outgoing North Carolina Supreme Court Chief Justice Cheri Beasley on Wednesday detailed a commission that will recommend how to discourage and ultimately eliminate unfair treatment in the judicial system based on race, gender or other factors.

The text of the order acknowledged inequalities in the judicial system “that stem from a history of deeply rooted discriminatory policies and practices and the ongoing role of implicit and explicit racial, gender, and other biases.” Beasley, the first Black woman serving as chief justice, also delivered an address following the death of George Floyd that acknowledged enduring racial inequalities in North Carolina’s system.

There are many issues that need to be dealt with, and wealth disparities are at the top of that list:

Contemptible Icons: Thomas Ruffin portrait removed from Orange County courthouse

Submitted by scharrison on

There are heroes, and there are villains:

The defendant in the case was John Mann, a North Carolinian who had been renting a slave named Lydia. When she committed a trifling offense, Mann whipped her. During the whipping, Lydia attempted to escape, so Mann shot her, gravely wounding her. North Carolina authorities deemed his response to her escape attempt disproportionate and charged him with assault and battery. In the criminal trial, the jury ruled against him. He appealed, claiming that assault on a slave by her master could not be indictable since a slave was property of her master.

Ruffin concluded that “the power of the master must be absolute, to render the submission of the slave perfect.” He argued that inhuman punishment of slaves was indeed legal in North Carolina.

Before you say, "But that was the law of the land back then" or something along those lines, both the local authorities *and* a jury deemed his actions were criminal. There is some evidence that suggests Mann was not well respected in the community, and his jury conviction may have had more to do with getting rid of a local nuisance than concern over the slave's injuries. But I also can't help noticing that John Mann was *not* the owner of Lydia, he was merely renting her. Which sounds absurd enough. The slave's real owner was a teenage girl, whose uncle rented out Lydia to whoever could pay. But apparently none of that mattered to Ruffin, which is one more reason to pull those portraits down. Note: the portrait hanging right behind Chief Justice Beasley in the above photo is of Thomas Ruffin...

Strange times: Should the NC Supreme Court get involved in veto-gate?

Submitted by James on

Depending on whom you talk to and when, North Carolina is

a. on the cusp of a constitutional crisis
b. an object lesson in how to cheat and get away with it
d. yes, and then some

No matter what you call it, these are strange times. A week ago, a trial court declared the districts that gave us the current legislature to be illegal and ordered new maps. This was an extraordinary ruling, appropriate to extraordinary circumstances. The GOP legislature began cheating out of the blocks, using forbidden maps to guide their work. The court will need to intervene again.

And this week, our illegally constituted Republican assembly has used deception and trickery to override the governor's veto. It's brass-knuckled politics, straight from the party of Trump. Maybe not criminal, definitely sleazy. So now what.

First and foremost, uphold the veto in the Senate. It's going to be a close vote, with every Republican voting to cheat.

Next, litigation, Take Tim Moore to court, even if we stop things in the Senate.

Why Barbara Jackson is not fit to serve on NC's Supreme Court

Submitted by scharrison on

Her complete obeisance to Republicans in the General Assembly is distressing:

The General Assembly can waive its common law rights in addition to its statutory rights, and whether it chooses to do so is not within the purview of this Court. Nevertheless, we will not lightly assume such a waiver by a coordinate branch of government. Therefore, without a clear and unambiguous statement by the General Assembly that it intends to waive its attorney-client privilege or work-product doctrine, we are compelled to exercise judicial restraint and defer to the General Assembly‟s judgment regarding the scope of its legislative confidentiality.

In a nutshell, Justice Jackson blocked the plaintiff's discovery of e-mails associated with the GOP's gerrymandering plot after they took over the General Assembly in 2011. And she did this because she knew that during the back-and-forth between lawmakers and mapmakers and consultants, the true nature of their racial gerrymandering would be revealed. It was not about "complying" with the VRA, it was about abusing those Federal guidelines in order to pack African Americans into districts and greatly reduce the value and impact of their votes. In the absence of such damning proof, Republicans were free to keep their little charade afloat. Read the whole decision and you will see Jackson dug up the worst collection of Precedent I've seen in a while to back up her argument. Irrelevant and inappropriate don't even cover it. But at least read Robin Hudson's dissent, because it demonstrates why the GOP worked so hard to steal her seat:

Meet Supreme Court candidate Anita Earls

Submitted by scharrison on

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