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Page Number: 36

14 

BERGER v. NORTH CAROLINA STATE 
CONFERENCE OF THE NAACP 
SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting 

state law specifically gives the Attorney General the discre-
tion to make these kinds of decisions”). 

If any doubt remains, the results delivered by the attor-
ney general’s representation should eliminate it.  The attor-
ney general sought and secured on appeal a reversal of the 
District  Court’s  preliminary  injunction.    He  also  won  the 
Governor’s dismissal from the suit.  It is hardly persuasive
to flyspeck the attorney general’s litigation approach when
that very approach has vindicated the State’s interests. 

Finally, the Court alludes to petitioners’ argument that
state  respondents’  representation  of  petitioners’  interests 
was inadequate because the Governor (who vetoed S. B. 824
and personally opposed the law) exercised appointment au-
thority over state respondents.  Ante, at 16.  The Court is 
right  not  to  fully  embrace  this  argument,  which  implies
that the attorney general and the career professionals in his 
office are incapable of executing their statutory duty to rep-
resent North Carolina in litigation and defend its interests.
See  N. C.  Gen.  Stat.  Ann.  §114–2.  Petitioners’  “startling 
accusation” flies in the face of the presumption that public
officials can be trusted to exercise their official duties and 
overlooks the attorney general’s vigorous advocacy to date. 
999 F. 3d,  at 937; see United States  v. Chemical Founda-
tion,  Inc.,  272  U. S.  1,  15  (1926)  (courts  should  “presume 
that [public officials] have properly discharged their official
duties”).  As the Court of Appeals explained, that the Gov-
ernor  or  the  attorney  general  “may  have  expressed  policy
views at odds with S.B. 824 in the past is no ground for a
federal court to infer that [the attorney general] would ab-
dicate his official duty to the State by subterfuge, mounting 
a sham defense of the statute.”  999 F. 3d, at 937.  To sug-
gest otherwise does a grave “disservice to the dignified work 
of  government  lawyers  who  each  day  put  aside  their  own
policy and political preferences to advocate dutifully on be-
half of their governments and the general public.”  Ibid.