Ethics investigation into NC Supreme Court Justice Anita Earls can continue, federal judge rules
The state can keep pursuing an ethics investigation into North Carolina Supreme Court Justice Anita Earls, a federal judge ruled Tuesday.
Earls is being investigated by the Judicial Standards Commission for comments she made in media interviews about racial, gender and political biases on the state's highest court. The investigation is focused on whether she broke a rule for judges focused on upholding the integrity of the judicial system in North Carolina.
Earls, who is the only Black woman on the state highest court, sued to stop the investigation in August, saying the probe is a violation of her First Amendment rights. The Democrat also says it’s a politically motivated attempt to silence her — and potentially even remove her from a bench dominated by Republicans.
Federal District Court Judge William Osteen denied her request on Tuesday, saying that justices are held to a high standard and that the state has a legitimate interest in policing their comments. He pointed not just to her comments on race and gender, but also a remark Earls made that the court's conservatives vote as a partisan bloc, implying they let their political views outweigh the legal merits of a case.
"A justice’s speech carries certain weight due to the authority of, and respect commanded by, the office of North Carolina Supreme Court Justice," he wrote. "Public criticism by a justice of other justices is different from the same statement by media outlets or citizens in general. ... An allegation that certain judges may elevate political or other personal ideology over the institution of the North Carolina Supreme Court may diminish the authority and integrity of that Court as a whole."
But Earls still contends that her comments were protected by the First Amendment and that the investigation violates her constitutional rights. She will appeal Tuesday's ruling, her attorney Press Millen told WRAL.
"The ruling, in our view, fails to recognize the significance of the constitutional violations to which Justice Earls has been subjected by the continuing investigations of the Judicial Standards Commission," Millen said. "The opinion is contrary to established legal precedent on the role of federal courts in guaranteeing the freedom of speech."
Craig Schauer, the attorney for the Judicial Standards Commission, didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.
The commission began investigating Earls earlier this year, following a WRAL report on secret policy changes being floated by the court’s new GOP leadership that critics characterized as power grabs. That portion of the investigation appeared to have been based on a misreading of the report and was quickly dismissed, Earls said in her lawsuit, but then officials later reopened the investigation to examine her comments on race and politics at the court.
In addition to her work on the Supreme Court, Earls also is a co-chairperson of the state task force on racial justice reforms Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper started in 2020.
Earls will still be able to make her argument that the investigation is unconstitutional at trial. She had wanted to block the investigation from proceeding further before trial, however, since it's possible it could come to a conclusion before the trial begins.
During oral arguments earlier this month, Osteen harped repeatedly on Earls' comments about judges allowing their political views to inform their legal decisions. In his ruling Tuesday he said that's a valid line of investigation for the state to pursue.
Osteen, a George W. Bush appointee, also noted Tuesday that the investigation into Earls would have proceeded with total confidentiality had she not made it public herself with this lawsuit.
During oral arguments earlier this month, as well as at multiple press conferences at the state legislature, racial justice advocates and fellow Democratic politicians rallied around Earls.
She's being targeted by the Supreme Court's conservative leadership in an attempt to silence all Black attorneys and judges from speaking out against racial injustice, they said.
Supreme Court Chief Justice Paul Newby and the leadership of the Judicial Standards Commission have repeatedly declined requests for interviews about the case. In a written statement earlier this year, the commission’s executive director, Brittany Pinkham, defended its work as apolitical.
"The North Carolina Judicial Standards Commission is a nonpartisan investigative body comprised of members appointed by the chief justice, governor, General Assembly, and State Bar Council," she told WRAL. "The Commission is statutorily obligated to investigate all instances of alleged judicial misconduct and cannot comment on pending investigations."
