Policy Watch interviews NC Supreme Court candidates: Part Two

Two Supreme Court seats are on the ballot this Election Day, offering Republicans the opportunity to flip the state’s highest court. Policy Watch has reached out to each of the four candidates and is publishing their responses from interviews conducted in October.

[Editor’s note: You can read Part One featuring Sam J. Ervin, IV and Trey Allen here.]

Democrat Lucy Inman and Republican Richard Dietz are squaring off in a race to replace Supreme Court Justice Robin Hudson, who is retiring. Both Inman and Dietz are judges on the North Carolina Court of Appeals.

Inman started her judicial career in Superior Court before moving on to the Court of Appeals. Here is a link to her website.

Dietz clerked for two federal judges, Judge Emory Widener on the U.S. Court of Appeals and Judge Samuel Wilson on the U.S. District Court in Virginia. He joined the North Carolina Court of Appeals in 2014. Here is a link to his website.

As readers can see, the candidates’ responses aren’t all that different. Both talked about how important it was for judges to weigh the facts of each case independent of their political party, walking an awkward line between running for office as a Republican or Democrat and auditioning for the role of impartial judge on the state’s highest court.

But that hasn’t stopped advocacy groups from raising awareness of the stakes of the Supreme Court races ahead of the election. On Oct. 12 the ACLU of North Carolina announced it would spend $1.1 million to convey to voters the power the state Supreme Court holds in protecting North Carolinians’ civil liberties.

“There is no doubt that politicians in the legislature will attempt to ban abortion in North Carolina, and we need a state supreme court that will protect our freedoms and our state constitution,” Chantal Stevens, executive director of the ACLU of North Carolina, said in a press release. “This election cycle, we’re going to ensure that voters throughout the state know our state supreme court may be the last line of defense we have in protecting abortion access in North Carolina.”

Dietz asked to respond to the questions via email. Wanting to include both candidates’ responses and yet be fair to each, Policy Watch offered Inman the opportunity to respond via email. Inman said she’d prefer to have a conversation but asked to see questions beforehand since her opponent would have time to prepare responses. Policy Watch granted that request but asked several follow-up questions during that discussion.

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Policy Watch’s conversation with Inman is below.

PW: You are running as a Democrat; what does it mean to you for someone to be a Democratic judge on the Supreme Court? 

LI: It means that that person is registered with the State Board of Elections as a member of the Democratic Party. It means that that person was able to run for election without submitting tens of thousands of signatures of registered voters on a petition to be able to run.

PW: Do you think that running as a Democrat or Republican confers a sort of ideology that voters expect from their candidates?

LI: I think there’s always a possibility that it can. But it’s not a monolithic phenomenon. And by that I mean I’ve written a couple of constitutional decisions that reason resulted in rulings that were adverse to some of the most powerful and respected elected officials who are also Democrats. So I don’t think it’s monolithically predicted… party affiliation is not and certainly should not be a monolithic predictor of how a judge or justice is going to decide cases.

PW: What are the stakes of this election, and by extension, of the possibility of the court flipping political parties?

LI: The stakes of this election are who will be entrusted by the voters to help make decisions in the many cases that will come before the North Carolina Supreme Court for the next eight years. The stakes of this election have been described by many as whether judges affiliated with the Democratic Party or the Republican Party will constitute a majority of the court.

… If the majority of the justices as classified by partisan affiliation changes, the justices in the new majority will be challenged to navigate the tension between the doctrine of stare decisis and their potential individual and group disagreements with recent decisions in which they dissented. They will also be challenged between their duty to decide each case independent of partisan influence and the expressions of desire by partisans, who have heralded the likelihood that recent Supreme Court precedent can be overturned.

PW: What is the role of the state Supreme Court as it relates to dealing with laws passed by the legislature?

LI: The role of the state Supreme Court is to review laws that are challenged in cases that are brought to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court does not have any authority to unilaterally, or on its own, review any acts by the legislature. Its authority is to review laws that are challenged in cases that reach the Supreme Court. And that judicial review is not to decide if a law is good or bad policy. It’s to decide whether a law is permissible under the North Carolina State Constitution and the federal Constitution.

PW: What does the phrase “free and fair elections” mean to you?

LI: The meaning of that term, for me, is derived from decisions by the North Carolina Supreme Court. When you’re talking about free and fair elections in North Carolina, under our state constitution, I guess it’s also informed by the words of our state constitution.

PW: What is the Supreme Court’s role in ensuring North Carolina has free and fair elections?

LI: That, too, is defined by our state constitution and precedent from the North Carolina Supreme Court… The Supreme Court did not say in Bayard. v Singleton, ‘We know better than the legislature how the merits of this dispute should be resolved.’ But they said, ‘We have the authority and the responsibility to review acts of the legislature, and if those acts violate a provision of the state constitution, it’s our duty to strike down those facts.

PW: What is the Supreme Court’s role in allowing, expanding or limiting prospective voters’ access to the ballot box?

LI: I’m gonna sound like a broken record. But it is, again, the power of judicial review. And only when cases are brought to the Supreme Court in which someone is challenging their asserted right to have access to the ballot box. It’s the duty of the Supreme Court to review the facts and the law and decide what the North Carolina Constitution requires.

PW: Do you think systemic racism permeates our state’s criminal justice system?

LI: I believe systemic racism has permeated our society, including our criminal justice system throughout history and my lifetime, because many of our legal authorities, including the criminal law, were written at a time when people of all races were not treated equally under the law.

PW: What would your role as a Supreme Court justice be in reducing or eliminating those systemic inequities?

LI: The role of Supreme Court Justice is judicial review of lower court decisions and the interpretation of the law, interpretation of our state constitution, the federal constitution and our state statutes. There also is a role I think, for any judge, including Supreme Court justices to write judicial decisions in plain language that the average North Carolinian can read and understand for themselves. And if there is an allegation in a case of systemic racism, it is the role of any judge to acknowledge that allegation and to address it with the same fair and impartial analysis that’s required in every case.

… I believe that when there is evidence of a problem in a judicial system, such as systemic racism, that acknowledging problems that appear from the record, that appear from the evidence is important to instill public confidence in the integrity of the judiciary. Turning a blind eye and ignoring problems might be easier in the short run. But courts owe a duty of honesty to the public.

PW: A Democratic political consulting group found the court’s three Republican justices voted together 97% of the time in non-unanimous decisions in 2022, compared to Democrats doing that about half the time. Do you see that near-unanimity as a problem or a positive?

LI: Independence from partisan influence is a fundamental qualification for any judge, including a justice on the Supreme Court. It would not be appropriate for me as a member of the judiciary to speculate or comment about what you describe as near unanimity among less than all of the justices. I believe that the greater number of unanimous decisions rendered by a court leads to greater public confidence. But no single justice or group of justices should be able to exert partisan or other political pressure on other justices. Justices need to persuade one another through rational discussion, not partisan or political influence.

PW: How would you respond to voters who would say that the US Supreme Court has moved further to the right, and they want Democratic judges to similarly issue decisions in line with their ideology?

LI: Judges have a constitutional duty that is different from, and importantly different from, the constitutional duty of elected officials in the legislative and executive branches of government. Judges have a duty to decide cases impartially based on the facts of record and the law, as impartially interpreted by the judges. For a judge to bring any agenda to decisions, including an agenda that the political party that judge is affiliated with, might like to see borne out in decisions, are violating their oath of office.

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Dietz answered his questions via email. His answers are copied and pasted below.

PW: You are running as a Republican; what does it mean to you for someone to be a Republican judge on the Supreme Court?

RD: My party affiliation does not have any impact on the work I do as a judge. Judges must put aside their personal preferences, including any political views, and decide cases fairly and impartially based on the law.

PW: What are the stakes of this election, and by extension, of the possibility of the court flipping political parties?

RD: In every judicial election, voters select the candidate they view as most qualified for the position. A change in political affiliations of the justices should have no impact of the Court’s decisions because judge must put aside their own personal and political views and decide cases based on the law.

PW: What is the role of the state Supreme Court as it relates to dealing with laws passed by the legislature?

RD: The Supreme Court’s role is to interpret the laws passed by the legislature when there are legal disputes about the meaning of those laws, and to enforce the limits on the government’s power established by the people in the U.S. Constitution and North Carolina Constitution when those laws are challenged in court.

PW: What does the phrase “free and fair elections” mean to you?

RD: This phrase is used to describe the election process in democratic nations with a commitment to fundamental freedoms and pluralistic political governance. It is associated with nations that provide freedom of speech and association during the campaigning period, universal suffrage, and protections during the voting process.

PW: What is the Supreme Court’s role in ensuring North Carolina has free and fair elections?

RD: The Supreme Court’s role is to interpret our elections laws, and ensure they are consistent with the U.S. Constitution and North Carolina Constitution, in legal cases that arrive at our State’s highest court.

PW: What is the Supreme Court’s role in allowing, expanding or limiting prospective voters’ access to the ballot box?

RD: The Supreme Court’s role is to interpret our elections laws, and ensure they are consistent with the U.S. Constitution and North Carolina Constitution, in legal cases that arrive at our State’s highest court.

PW: Do you believe systemic racism permeates our state’s criminal justice system? If so, what would your role as a Supreme Court justice be in reducing or eliminating those systemic inequities and ensuring all North Carolinians equal treatment under the law?

RD: I’m proud of our justice system and all the people who work in our court system. Everyone in our court system must remain committed to ensuring that all people are treated fairly and receive due process and the equal protection of the law when they come to the court system.

PW: A Democratic political consulting group found the court’s three Republican justices voted together 97% of the time in non-unanimous decisions in 2022, compared to Democrats doing that about half the time. Do you see that near-unanimity as a problem or a positive?

RD: The goal should be unanimity or near-unanimity for the entire court. I am uniquely situated to bring our Supreme Court together and foster that consensus and unanimity. In eight years on the Court of Appeals, I’ve heard thousands of appeals. In all that time, I’m the only judge who has never authored a dissent. It’s not because I’m afraid to dissent (I’ve circulated my share of draft dissents) but because, even while I stand by my view of the correct interpretation of the law, I have the character and temperament to respect my colleagues, listen to their views, and persuade to reach the just result. When I am elected, I will bring this collegial approach to the Supreme Court and bring the Court together in consensus on important cases.