The N.C. Supreme Court building in downtown Raleigh. (Photo by Ricky Leung)
Every four years North Carolinians head to the polls to elect the people who will be in charge of running our government. Alongside the office of the president, everything from governor to county commissioner will be on the ballot this November. But, more often than not, these other important positions fall to the wayside due to the overwhelming number of questions and lack of easily accessible information on all these various roles. North Carolinians have a right to know who they’re voting for to represent them in office and, even more importantly, who they’re electing to rule on some of the most consequential decisions impacting their everyday lives.
Many Americans are familiar with the power and influence of our U.S. Supreme Court, particularly since the overturning of Roe v. Wade, but lack a general understanding of the role that state courts play in their everyday lives. State courts and state constitutions play a key role in protecting our individual rights and freedoms—particularly now with the U.S. Supreme Court sending everything from redistricting to abortion access back down to the state courts. About 95% of all court cases go through state courts and many state constitutions, including North Carolina’s, go further than the U.S. Constitution in protecting individual rights and ensuring political power is derived from the people.
Our state court judges decide cases that change lives and uphold and invalidate laws that affect every aspect of our lives. From decisions on criminal justice to civil liberties and beyond, the judiciary directly impacts issues like voting rights, education access, and reproductive freedom. Who we elect to our judicial bench should be equally as important as who we elect to be our next president.
To help North Carolinians understand how our state courts impact their daily lives, our organization, North Carolina For the People, created Why Judges Matter NC. Our goal is to build public awareness around these key cases in order to empower voters to make informed decisions about judicial elections and to highlight how these rulings affect communities across the state. To highlight the real-world impact of these courts, we’ve compiled notable cases that underscore their role in shaping policies—affecting everything from healthcare to education.
For us, personally, there are several issues and reasons why we feel so passionately about this work and the role that courts play in our lives. When Beatrice started working on this project we spoke specifically about the role that the criminal justice system plays in the lives of many BIPOC North Carolinians. The criminal justice sector and judges on these benches hold an incredible amount of power over life and death, especially in death penalty cases. They’re the ones who decide whether evidence of innocence is considered and whether racial bias in jury selection gets corrected. If we don’t have judges who are committed to real justice, innocent people—like Marcellus Williams—will continue to be executed.
For Melissa, the ongoing Leandro education funding case is very personal too as she has a 22-year-old and a 20-year-old who went through an underfunded school system and now have an 8-year-old daughter in the same situation. What that looks like is consoling a parent in her neighborhood, as she explained through tears, that her 5th-grade daughter didn’t have a teacher. In fact, their local elementary school only has half of the needed 5th-grade teachers for our student population. This unfortunate reality is not new to Melissa as her daughter also didn’t have a teacher for most of kindergarten and they’re still struggling to learn to read because of it. It’s simply outrageous that anyone — especially the members of our state legislature — would want to hurt and deprive children of the right to an education.
North Carolinians, just like ourselves, should be looking at rulings on the issues that matter most to them and thinking through how that impacts their voting decisions for judicial candidates. Among the questions that are important to consider are:
How has a candidate ruled on an issue previously and how they might rule in the future?
Who is financially backing this candidate and will this money impact whether or not they can be fair and impartial?
Will they bend to their political party, or will they uphold the rule of law? Will they stand up for your rights?
Every voter needs to know what’s at stake for them and their families when they go to the ballot box. This November let’s ensure that our vote for judicial office is just as important as our vote for the next President.