In January, we sat down with Earls, one of two Democrats and the only Black judge on the N.C. Supreme Court, to discuss her civil rights background, how the state courts affect the day-to-day lives of North Carolinians, what cases are expected to come before the court in the coming weeks, and more.
For those who might not be familiar, tell us how it came to be that you're an associate justice, and tell us a bit about your background and how you stepped into this role.
I am a justice because the voters of North Carolina gave me this opportunity. I ran for office in 2018 and was elected. We have eight-year terms to the seven-member court. So most directly, it was my opportunity to take my case to voters about why I wanted to be a justice and why I wanted their vote of confidence in order to serve in this role. My career path was somewhat non-traditional, if you will, in the sense that I was a civil rights attorney for 30 years. I represented plaintiffs in state and federal courts, primarily in civil rights cases, although I also handled a wide variety of other types of cases in state court. By civil rights cases, I mean everything from voting rights to school desegregation, employment discrimination cases, public accommodations, police misconduct. The whole range of individuals seeking to enforce their rights under the Constitution.
And tell us about your work with the Southern Coalition for Social Justice, which you founded in 2007.
That was really the culmination of my opportunities to work in a wide variety of types of legal settings. I started out in a private firm in Charlotte – that was Julius Chambers’ firm. And for 10 years, I represented plaintiffs as a private attorney, the way other attorneys represent individuals. I was then in the U.S. Department of Justice at the Civil Rights Division, so I got to see how civil rights enforcement happens across the country. I was in a national litigating organization, the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights, and I came back to North Carolina to work at the UNC Center for Civil Rights – a legal organization connected to a law school. And what I found in all of those settings was that I didn't have all the tools that I needed in one place to represent communities. So the reason for starting the Southern Coalition for Social Justice was to work regionally across the South, representing communities and bringing together lawyers, organizers, communication/media experts, and social scientists in one organization to work with community-based organizations.
Your family background is what inspired you to get involved with the law and with civil rights. You saw firsthand how the law can be used to break down barriers.
I grew up in a mixed race family. My father is Black. My mother is white. And when they met, in Missouri, it was illegal for them to be married. They moved to Seattle, where legally they could get married. And it actually wasn't until I was 7 years old that the U.S. Supreme Court decided the case that said those laws were unconstitutional. And, I think, witnessing for my own family, the ways in which – whether it was on the job or what neighborhoods we could live in, what opportunities to go to good schools we had – seeing how efforts through the courts to break down legal barriers was making a difference. That's what I wanted to contribute to.
You are only the seventh African-American judge in the history of the North Carolina Supreme Court, and the ninth woman to serve on that court. You are the only person of color currently on the court, which is obviously not reflective of our very diverse population in this state. There are persistent racial disparities in the justice system, made worse by a lack of diversity among judges, attorneys, law clerks. In your view, what can be done to increase representation in the entire system and on the bench?
It is remarkable that our court has been in existence for 204 years now, and all seven of the African Americans who have served on the court are still alive. So it's been very recent that we've had that kind of representation. We've only ever had one Jewish member of the court. We've never had a Native American or Asian member of the court. The diversity on the court itself is most directly in the hands of the voters. But, more indirectly, I think we have to look at who has opportunities for the career path that then puts you in a position to be able to effectively run for a statewide office. … So who has the opportunities to go to law school? Who is able to be an appellate lawyer and argue in the Court of Appeals? … One common path to the court is by being a trial judge, so a superior court judge or a district court judge. Another path is by being a Court of Appeals judge first; there again, you have to run statewide. Part of the challenge is making sure that our court pays attention to the diversity of students who serve as law clerks, people who argue in front of us. … What do we do as members of the court to foster a wide representative? I think there are a lot of ways in which our courts should be representative. So not only race and gender, but also the demographics of the state. I'm really excited that we have someone running for our Court of Appeals – Martin Moore – who's from Asheville. You know, to have regional representation. And it’s really important to have – among the seven-member, Supreme Court and the 15-member Court of Appeals – people who've had a diverse professional background. Not only people who have served as assistant district attorneys, but also public defenders. Not only people who've represented corporations, but also personal injury lawyers who've represented individuals and families. And having people with a civil rights background in the mix – I think is important.
You campaigned on equal justice under the law. And you reject the idea that the judiciary is simply about who gets locked up in this country. Tell us more about your vision for our justice system and how it can be improved.
The crowd cheers as Earls is introduced at FLIP NC’s 2018 launch party
Absolutely. I think it's so important that people understand that protecting our rights is a key function of our judicial system, and, all too often, I think voters think of judges in their role in a criminal case. And it is certainly true that courts play a role in guaranteeing public safety. I'm the first one to understand what happens when there isn't a criminal justice system solution, if you will, for when a crime is committed, particularly when someone's injured or killed. However, that's not all we do. And I think part of the exciting thing about having the opportunity for me to work on the Task Force for Racial Equity and Criminal Justice is to acknowledge that there are really important ways that we need to improve our criminal justice system so that there aren't these racial disparate outcomes. But more fundamentally – whether it's a family law case deciding child custody issues, whether it's an estate case [about] who gets property after someone dies, whether it's a small business dispute or if you're in a car accident, and [it’s about] are you going to get compensated for your injuries. If you're hurt on the job, is your employer responsible for paying your medical bills? All those types of decisions are impacted by the cases that we hear in our court. And I am concerned that our court has recently taken the position that we can't protect constitutional rights. So let's talk about voting rights. In the voting rights arena, I think a lot of people are concerned about the issue of partisan gerrymandering. In 2022 and 2023, our court took vastly different positions on that question. In 2022, the court said that extreme partisan gerrymandering violates the state constitutional guarantee of free and open elections. We said everyone's vote should count equally in the state, and no party should be able to rig the system to favor them. In 2023, in the same case – after an election, after voters elected a different court – the court revisited that and said no, we don't have any power under the state constitution to do anything about partisan gerrymandering. To me, that's an example of the court failing to protect an important right in the Constitution. Another huge area is education. Our state court has previously said that every citizen in the state has a state constitutional right to a sound, basic education. And it's part of the function of the court to enforce the state constitution.
You referenced the 2022 court. The composition of the state Supreme Court right now is a 5-2 split, with a Republican majority. As you said, North Carolina elects Supreme Court justices to eight-year terms. There's one seat on the ballot in 2024. There's one seat on the ballot in 2026 – that will be your seat. And then three seats on the ballot in 2028. So theoretically, the Democrats could win back a majority in 2028. But they have to defend one seat this cycle and then defend your seat next cycle. The Republicans swept the 2022 Supreme Court elections and won control of the court for the first time since 2016. You were elected in 2018. What were some of the highlights of the court when it had that Democratic majority during your early days?
What I can say is that there is a very strong difference, if you look at our decisions over that period, the decisions that have come from our court. And here I'm reporting on research that People's Parity Project did, looking at how often does the court rule for individuals and how often does it rule for corporations. And the bottom line is: There is a very strong difference between how the Democratic judges would rule and how the Republican judges would rule. In practical terms, looking at our opinions, what that has meant is that when I was first on the court, I was often in the majority. And now I'm mostly writing dissents.
Let’s discuss partisan labeling because our Supreme Court didn't always have that, meaning there wasn't always a D or an R next to someone's name on the ballot. That changed after 2016. You've done so much voting rights work, and you’ve spoken in interviews about how people actually like having that information. And, of course, a justice is going to align more with one party over the other. But that doesn't mean they have to behave in an overtly partisan way. Can you explain the difference? How can judges uphold a fair, impartial, independent judiciary while representing their party?
My conclusion about voters liking [the party label] – I don't have public opinion polls to cite; I'm only looking at election returns. And when you look at how many people did not vote in the 2016 election for the state Supreme Court and did vote in the Court of Appeals race – some half a million voters skipped over that race on the ballot in 2016. I don't have … polling data to indicate why, but the main difference was that the Supreme Court race in 2016 was non-partisan, and the Court of Appeals race in 2016 was partisan. I think the partisan label gives voters an idea of what that judges values are, what their philosophy is. It doesn't tell you anything about how a judge would rule in a particular case. And I don't think that adhering to or being faithful to any party platform is anything that any judge does when they approach a case. What I do know is that we can look at the voting records of judges on the bench in the cases that have been decided. And what that pattern shows is, in our state, just looking at the cases that were decided in 2021 and 2022, when we had a 4-3 court, the Republican justices voted together almost all the time. The Democratic justices actually disagreed with each other more than they disagreed with the Republicans. My point being that if you are an independent judge, you look at each case and you do your best job to apply your understanding of the law to the facts in that case, without any sense or need to adhere to any particular point of view from any of your colleagues. It's your job, as an independent justice, to decide how you think the case should be handled.
Let's talk about the importance of the state Supreme Court in North Carolinians’ day-to-day lives. The court does a lot to protect our individual rights – or not. Can you provide examples? What do you want people to understand about the court that they maybe don't?
I think people don't realize how, even if they themselves don't have a case in our court system, the decisions that we make impact what happens to them. Which election district you're voting in is ultimately a result of court decisions in this state at this point in time. How much funding goes to public education, the rules that govern how you might be compensated if you are injured, if you have to sue your employer. And maybe you don't file a lawsuit, but whether or not you have the right to file a lawsuit is decided by our courts. So everything from family law to medical malpractice, when someone might be injured – all of those types of things affect our lives every day. And I think we so often think of the policymakers, the governor, the legislature, Congress, the U.S. Supreme Court. There's a lot of attention on the U.S. Supreme Court without recognizing that, in fact, by many multiples, much more litigation happens in state court than federal court. You're, sort of, 10 times more likely to have a case in state court, and the decisions that we make affect people's lives in a much more direct way. I think some people have looked at some of the other state courts around the issue of a woman's right to choose. And I think one of the striking things to me about the choice that voters will have this November is that Justice Riggs, currently on the court appointed by Governor Cooper, is our only justice of childbearing age on our court or on the Court of Appeals. So having someone with that perspective, to me, is important to have in the mix when we are deciding issues that are so fundamental to people's lives.
Note: Read Part 2 of our interview with Earls.
Both Democratic justices – Anita Earls and Allison Riggs – will speak at our Feb. 25 launch party at Motorco in downtown Durham. Get the details and register to attend.