RALEIGH — In a development likely to leave the state’s election schedule unchanged for 2004, the North Carolina Supreme Court released its decision Thursday regarding a critical appeal of a lower-court ruling in the state’s long-running case involving legislative districts.

Actually, on second thought, that’s not right. The state’s long-running redistricting case has been over since 2002.

Confused? Join the club. While the court’s decision does clarify matters with regard to the election cycle — which officially begins Monday with candidate filings for federal, state and local offices — it remains puzzling in many ways.

Without going into detail, here’s the thumbnail sketch. The original litigation filed by Republican plaintiffs in 2001, referred to as the Stephenson case, eventually reached the Supreme Court in 2002, where the justices ruled that a 2001 gerrymander by Democratic leaders violated the letter and spirit of the state constitution’s requirement that districts respect county lines. After formulating a set of criteria to reconcile state and federal law on redistricting, the court sent the case back to the trial court in Johnston County, which in turn ordered the General Assembly to try again. It did. But according to Judge Knox Jenkins, it failed. So he instigated “interim” House and Senate maps for use in the 2002 elections.

As suggested by court rulings and the use of the term “interim,” the 2002 districts were only temporary. The General Assembly was again tasked with drawing legislative districts in 2003 for use in the 2004 elections and beyond. But in what seems to be an intentional gambit to delay the 2004 elections and achieve partisan and personal advantage, legislative leaders waited until November 2003 to draw the districts. In the meantime, the Stephenson plaintiffs went back to Jenkins and argued that lawmakers were impermissably dragging their feet. He didn’t agree — but he did assert his continuing jurisdiction in the matter. And the state did not appeal his ruling.

Here’s where things get stickier. As part of their November 2003 districts, the state legislature also included changes in redistricting law, most importantly the creation of a new three-judge panel in Wake Superior Court to handle all pending and future redistricting litigation. They (meaning the Democratic leaders and House Co-Speaker Richard Morgan) then sued the Stephenson plantiffs in Wake in a sort of preemptive strike. Not to be outdone, the Stephenson plaintiffs went back to Jenkins and argued that the legislature had unconstitutionally stripped him of jurisdiction in a pending case, a retroactive move that the courts had previously prohibited.

Jenkins declined to try to rule on a dispute involving his own jurisdiction. Chief Justice Bev Lake then transferred the case from Johnston to Wake (which assumed, by the way, that there was a case to move) and assigned the matter to Judge Robert Hobgood, who in January ruled for the Morgan plaintiffs and upheld the new redistricting panel and its jurisdiction. Naturally, the GOP plaintiffs from Stephenson appealed. On Thursday, the Supreme Court released its surprising answer.

Let me make four general points on this:

* The good news is that the Court did not sanction a legislative move to strip jurisdiction in a court in a pending case. This would have set a horrible precedent for the future and resulted in a serious violation of the constitutional separation of powers.

* The even-better news is that by upholding Hobgood — a move that clearly helps the Democratic leader of the legislature (plus Richard Morgan) — the GOP-dominated Supreme Court has demonstrated its judicial independence. Its future decisions on these and other matters should now receive the respect the justices failed to receive from Democrats and uninformed observers over the past two years. In fact, apologies would be in order, not that they will be offered.

* The best news is that the ruling is a procedural one. It does not mean that any court has found the new districts to be constitutional. In fact, the House map remains almost certainly unconstitutional, though this will now not become evident until new litigation is decided, likely after the 2004 elections.

* The bad news is that the Court’s latest decision is entirely predicated on a finding that makes no sense. The reason the new redistricting court in Wake County was deemed to be the appropriate venue for any challenge of the new maps by the Stephenson plaintiffs was that the Court ruled that the Stephenson case is over. In fact, according to the Court, it’s been over ever since Jenkins ordered interim maps be drawn up and the 2002 elections were held using them.

Huh? Jenkins has held hearings on Stephenson matters since then. The General Assembly was required to redraw its districts in 2003 by the Stephenson decisions, and Jenkins retained the jurisdiction to oversee that those prior rulings were enforced. Without ever having been overturned by a higher court, Jenkins found that legislators had failed to abide by the Supreme Court’s criteria. They still have a legal responsibility to do so, even today, just as the Stephenson plaintiffs still have a right to see decisions in their favor enforced.

Here’s an analogy. Say you and a business partner had a falling out. You sued him for breach of contract and won in court. He was required to repay you $50,000. He sent you a check for $10,000, promising more, but never paid anything else and then moved to another county. Does he still have a legal responsibility, in force from the previous court, to pay you the remainder? Or must you file a whole new case in his new county of residence, arguing it again from scratch, for the remaining claim of $40,000?

The latter would be absurd. I’m not an attorney, so I’ll be happy for someone to point out the error in my reasoning, but this finding simply makes no logical sense. It denies the winning side in a lawsuit the right to have its remedies enforced. It also makes no practical sense, because a new trial with a new panel of judges (not yet appointed) is probably impossible to accomplish in time to allow for legislative elections this year. Justice delayed in justice denied, it is said, and we now have the prospect of holding a 2004 election based on maps likely to be found unconstitutional sometime in 2005. Gee, thanks.

Finally, here’s another puzzlement. An Associated Press story on Thursday evening ended with this paragraph: “Senate Majority Leader Tony Rand, D-Cumberland, said he hoped the elections now could come off as scheduled. The redistricting case already has delayed the primary by two months.”

This is false. The two-month delay had nothing to do with the state redistricting case. It was entirely the result of the legislature waiting until November to pass the maps and then submit them to the U.S. Justice Department for approval, a process that simply wasn’t possible in time for the originally scheduled filing in February.

But, more importantly, what “redistricting case”?

Hood is president of the John Locke Foundation and publisher of Carolina Journal.