The N.C. Court of Appeals has rejected a challenge to the creation of a Wake County judgeship in 2004. In doing so, the state’s second highest court held that under the N.C. Constitution, the principle of “one man, one vote” does not extend to judicial elections.
In 2004, the General Assembly added a Superior Court judgeship for Wake County. The county was divided into four judicial districts, designated 10-A, 10-B, 10-C, and 10-D. The extra judgeship was added to District 10-A, the district with the smallest population. The number of residents per the 2000 census and judges in each district after the creation of the new judgeships are:
• District 10-A: 64,398 residents and two judges.
• District 10-B: 281,493 residents and two judges.
• District 10-C: 158,812 residents and one judge.
• District 10-D: 123,143 residents and one judge.
Three Wake County citizens challenged the creation of the additional judgeship, arguing the glaring disproportionality in the population per-judge violates the North Carolina Constitutions’ Equal Protection Clause. The state appealed after a Superior Court judge ruled in favor of the citizens.
In the Court of Appeals ruling, Judge James Wynn wrote: “Defendants contend that the principle of ’one person, one vote’ does not apply to judicial elections under either the United States Constitution or our North Carolina State Constitution. We agree.”
The Equal Protection Clause of Article I, Section 19 of the N.C. Constitution states “[n]o person shall be denied the equal protection of the laws[.]” The U.S. Supreme Court, meanwhile, has ruled that the Fourteenth Amendment’s equal protection clause requires the principle of “one man, one vote” in legislative apportionment and redistricting.
The U.S. Supreme Court, however, has explicitly not extended their holding to include judicial elections. Or to put it another way, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that “one man, one vote” need not apply in judicial elections. While that holding has no control over N.C. courts interpreting the N.C. Constitution, it is highly persuasive.
The Court of Appeals found relevant the N.C. Supreme Court’s ruling in a 1989 case called State ex rel. Martin v. Preston. In discussing the legality of delaying certain judicial elections, the high court noted the N.C. Constitution requires only that judicial elections be from “time to time” but sets exact timeframes for legislative and executive branch elections. The N.C. Supreme Court held that “[t]he distinction between those [legislative and executive] provisions of our Constitution and the provisions before us in this case concerning judges must have been intentional and further evidences a constitutional intent for flexibility in setting the times for holding judicial elections.”
The appeals court found a similar constitutional disparity critical in this case. The N.C. Constitution requires that House and Senate members “shall represent, as nearly as may be, an equal number of inhabitants.” The Constitution provision concerning judicial districts is rather different and makes no mention of an equal district size: “[t]he 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.”
The Court of Appeals also found that the General Assembly’s decision to create the additional judgeship as it did was not arbitrary and capricious.
N.C. Court of Appeal rulings are binding determinations of state law unless overruled by the N.C. Supreme Court. Because the ruling by the three-judge panel of the appeals court was unanimous, the high court is not required to take the case if plaintiffs were to appeal.
The case is Blankenship v. Bartlett, (06-1012).
Michael Lowrey is associate editor ofCarolina Journal.