Court Opinion

ID: 9853970
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 05:58:34.147829+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:20:24.606563
License: Public Domain

Justice TIMMONS-GOODSON
dissenting.
Because I conclude that the election of superior court judges does not implicate the equal protection principle of “one person, one vote,” I would hold that the judicial districting plan for Wake County set forth in N.C.G.S. § 7A-41 does not violate the Equal Protection Clause of the North Carolina Constitution. I therefore respectfully dissent.
It should first be noted “that ‘this Court gives acts of the General Assembly great deference, and a statute will not be declared unconstitutional under our Constitution unless the Constitution clearly prohibits that statute.’ ” Rhyne v. K-Mart Corp., 358 N.C. 160, 167, 594 S.E.2d 1, 7 (2004) (quoting In re Spivey, 345 N.C. 404, 413, 480 S.E.2d 693, 698 (1997)). “Accordingly, there is a strong presumption that the statute at issue is constitutional.” Id. at 168, 594 S.E.2d at 7 (citing Stephenson v. Bartlett, 355 N.C. 354, 362, 562 S.E.2d 377, 384 (2002)); see also Pender County v. Bartlett, 361 N.C. 491, 497, 649 S.E.2d 364, 368 (2007) (“An act of the General Assembly is accorded a ‘strong presumption of constitutionality’ and is ‘presumed valid unless it conflicts with the Constitution.’ ” (emphasis in original) (quoting Pope v. Easley, 354 N.C. 544, 546, 556 S.E.2d 265, 267 (2001) (per curiam))).
The majority determines that the Equal Protection Clause of the North Carolina Constitution requires population proportionality in superior court districts. I disagree on several grounds.
First'and foremost, superior court judges do not serve in a representative capacity, and their election therefore does not implicate the “one person, one vote” principle of equal protection. Population proportionality is important in legislative elections as it allows all voters to “enjoy the same representational influence or ‘clout.’ ” Stephenson, 355 N.C. at 377, 562 S.E.2d at 393. Legislators use their influence to represent voters in a greater legislative body. Accordingly, voters from a district that elects three legislators have more influence than voters in districts with only two representatives. But judges have no similar representational function. Voters do not elect a judge to “represent” them — that is, to serve as their voice in government and advance their interests. See, e.g., New York State Ass’n of Trial Lawyers v. Rockefeller, 267 F. Supp. 148, 153 (S.D.N.Y. 1967) (“The state judiciary, unlike the legislature, is not the organ *532responsible for achieving representative government.”). Rather, judges serve the public as a whole. See Holshouser v. Scott, 335 F. Supp. 928, 932 (M.D.N.C. 1971) (Judges “do not govern nor represent people nor espouse the cause of a particular constituency. They must decide cases exclusively on the basis of law and justice and not upon the popular view prevailing at the time.”), aff’d mem., 409 U.S. 807, 34 L. Ed. 2d 68 (1972). The number of judges that voters elect in a given district does not affect the voters’ political influences in the state legislature or in the courtroom, nor is a voter guaranteed of appearing before any particular judge.
Because judges serve the general public in a nonrepresentative capacity, there is no unequal protection among the voters of different districts that would trigger equal protection concerns:
“[T]he one man-one vote doctrine, applicable as it now is to selection of legislative and executive officials, does not extend to the judiciary. Manifestly, judges and prosecutors are not representatives in the same sense as are legislators or the executive. Their function is to administer the law, not to espouse the cause of a particular constituency. Moreover there is no way to harmonize selection of these officials on a pure population standard with the diversity in type and number of cases which will arise in various localities, or with the varying abilities of judges and prosecutors to dispatch the business of the courts. An effort to apply a population standard to the judiciary would, in the end, fall of its own weight.”
Holshouser, 335 F. Supp. at 931 (quoting Stokes v. Fortson, 234 F. Supp. 575, 577 (N.D. Ga. 1964)).
The second ground upon which I dissent is that the plain language of our Constitution, which expressly provides for flexibility in fashioning judicial districts, supports the judicial districting plan set forth in N.C.G.S. § 7A-41. Article IV, section 9 of the North Carolina Constitution provides: “The General Assembly shall, from time to time, divide the State into a convenient number of Superior Court judicial districts and shall provide for the election of one or more Superior Court Judges for each district.” N.C. Const. art. IV, § 9(1) (emphasis added). As this Court stated in State ex rel. Martin v. Preston, 325 N.C. 438, 460-61, 385 S.E.2d 473, 485 (1989):
Our Constitution anticipates that the needs of the state will change over time. It specifically provides that “[t]he General *533Assembly shall, from time to time, divide the State into a convenient number of Superior Court judicial districts . ...” N.C. Const, art. IV, § 9(1) (emphasis added). Contrary to the plaintiffs argument, there is no prohibition in our Constitution against the splitting of counties when creating superior court districts. Instead, our Constitution only requires that any division of the state into judicial districts be “convenient.”
In contrast to the flexibility granted under Article IV, the language in our Constitution regarding the election of representatives and senators is much more specific, see N.C. Const. art. II, §§ 3 and 5. Redistricting of legislative elections occurs “at the first regular session convening after the return of every decennial census of population taken by order of Congress,” id., as opposed to the general guide of “from time to time,” id. art. IV, § 9, for the election of superior court judges. The specificity with which the population proportionality is required by our Constitution (“Each [legislator] shall represent, as nearly as may be, an equal number of inhabitants, the number of inhabitants that each [legislator] represents being determined for this purpose by dividing the population of the district that he represents by the number of [legislators] apportioned to that district . . . .” id. art. II, §§ 3(1) and 5(1) (emphasis added)) stands in sharp contrast to the guidelines for creating a “convenient” number of districts within the state for judicial elections. Id. art. IV, § 9.
I must also note that the superior court division is a single unified court, having statewide jurisdiction, see id. art. IV, § 2, and that under our Constitution, rotation of superior court judges among the districts “shall be observed.” Id. art. IV, § 11. Thus, requiring proportional representation in this case has the potential to affect other judicial districts in the state. See New York Ass’n of Trial Lawyers, 267 F. Supp. at 153 (“Nor can the direction that state legislative districts be substantially equal in population be converted into a requirement that a state distribute its judges on a per capita basis.”).
Finally, the majority’s determination that principles of equal protection require population proportionality in judicial districts is contrary to every other jurisdiction that has considered this issue.
The numerous courts which have been presented with judicial election cases are in rare unanimity on this point. Judicial officers are not subject to the one person-one vote principle and therefore a state’s choice regarding the method of electing its judiciary is not subject to an equal protection challenge.
*534In re Objections to Nomination Petition of Cavanaugh, 65 Pa. Commw. 620, 638, 444 A.2d 1308, 1312 (1982); see also Holshouser, 335 E Supp. at 930 (“We find no case where the Supreme Court, a Circuit Court, or a District Court has applied the ‘one man, one vote’ principle or rule to the judiciary.”). The refusal of every other jurisdiction to apply population proportionality to judicial elections, including — as the majority acknowledges — the United States Supreme Court, should be highly persuasive to this Court. See State v. Warren, 252 N.C. 690, 696, 114 S.E.2d 660, 666 (1960) (“We are not bound by the decisions of the Courts of the other States, but should this Court hold the Act unconstitutional, North Carolina would be the only State to maintain this position. Such overwhelming authority is highly persuasive.”). The majority offers little persuasive authority to support or explain why this Court should deviate from the reasoning of every other court in the country, particularly in light of the express flexibility in fashioning judicial districts granted under our Constitution. Instead, the majority engineers an imaginary “tension” and “contradiction” in the jurisprudence in order to disavow the unanimous authority contrary to its position. See, e.g., In re Cavanaugh, 65 Pa. Commw. at 638, 444 A.2d at 1312 (noting the “rare unanimity” among the “numerous courts which have been presented with judicial election cases” and citing those cases). The majority then selects from an assortment of constitutional analyses to cobble together its own novel approach to the issue of judicial districting. Such strained creativity by the majority is revealing. Moreover, how such an analysis is to be applied in future cases is unsettling.
Given the lack of equal protection concern and the' well-established presumption in favor of the constitutionality of legislative acts, I would hold that N.C.G.S. § 7A-41 does not violate the Equal Protection Clause of the North Carolina Constitution and would affirm the Court of Appeals. As I conclude the trial court erred in declaring N.C.G.S. § 7A-41 unconstitutional, I need not address whether the trial court properly excluded evidence. I respectfully dissent.
Chief Justice PARKER and Justice HUDSON join in this dissenting opinion.