Chicanery in the 28th Judicial District

Yeah, well, chicanery abounds here in the banana republic of NC too.  If you appear as a plaintiff pro se, that's code to the judge: "Dismiss me sua sponte."  If (s)he can't find a suitable technicality, (s)he'll fabricate one.   If you go to the clerk's office to check the file, don't be shocked by all the interpolations, white-out, liquid paper, and spoliation.  And of course a dismissal order in the file.

We had a judge here recently call up on the calendar a felony preliminary hearing and demand the ADA proceed, in order "to make a point," because the attorney for the indigent accused was not present in the courtroom.  That had to do with the unsavory point the judge wanted to make.   He wanted to spank the lawyer but spanked the lawyer's client instead.  This is called a "vicarious spanking."  At least the defendant was present but handcuffed to the grid of his cage with a barred window so he could peep into the courtroom.  The judge then quickly made his point and bound the man over.  

I remember when I found the preliminary hearing a priceless tool for discovery.

You could often catch the witnesses in lies that haunted them and the angry DA, now thoroughly angered, at trial.

Four members of the NC Supreme Court publicly reprimanded the judge, but three dissented by reprimanding the majority members and recommending the bad judge receive a secret letter of caution, so as to hide his violations from the public.   

The defendant was black and so was the dissenting justice, Anita Earls, who wrote a peevish dissent.  Apparently Anita does not know the open secrets about this serial offender in a black dress, with his notorious history of outrages against due process of law, not even to mention the little ogre taking his pleasure with sadistic bench slaps on lawyers not to his liking.   Justice Sandra Day O'Connor wrote that elected judges are merely politicians in robes.  Whenever this scurrilous judge runs for office again to hold onto his robe, the campaign spectacle of a horde of obstreperous cronies reminds me of Don Corleone's rowdy wedding feast.  

This last election of judges there was no opposition.  No attorney with survival instincts is brave enough for the risk.  So the courthouse is a Dem monopoly and no opposition anywhere.  If a candidate should be so presumptuous as to oppose this ungeziefer on election day and lose, his best bet for survival is to move to another judicial district, and as far away as he can.   Judge Harry Martin's son Matthew had the audacity to run against Ungeziefer a few years ago, and Matthew has not been heard from since.  He disappeared into obscurity.