We recently sat down with Justice Riggs, one of two Democrats on the N.C. Supreme Court, who is defending her seat in November’s election. In this portion of our wide-ranging conversation (don’t miss Parts 1, 3, and 4!), she discusses serving “without fear or favor”; what voters are focused on going into the general election, including maintaining bodily autonomy; the impact the Court has on the day-to-day lives on North Carolinians; and how to end gerrymandering once and for all.
On how she defines delivering justice to all North Carolinians “without fear or favor”
As I understand, the way I am supposed to deliver justice without fear or favor, means that when I sit down to do my job, when I'm reading the briefs, when I'm reading the case law, when I'm considering the facts in front of me – I am not afraid that how I decide the law should be applied will come back to haunt me. It's not that I don't think politics are out there. But how my decision will be viewed by the folks in Raleigh, the folks on Jones Street, isn't why I'm doing this work.
I understand that no party starts with a head start. Everybody starts at the start line when they come into the court. And I recognize that that's not always the way it's been. When people come into the courtroom with tons of access to resources and a huge legal team – no aspersions on them. But I have to account for – everyone deserves to start at the same point. And I have to be aware of how the judicial system that I'm part of hasn't always provided that. So no favoritism, no head start. I'm starting from the arguments being made, the law as I understand it, the facts as they've been found in this case. And I can't change how I think the law should be applied, the opinions I think I should write, based on a sense of how popular they'll be with other folks.
Justice Riggs sits down for a conversation with FLIP NC
Truthfully, as a former civil rights lawyer, I think that's important. The laws that I have fought for people under, the constitutional provisions that I fought for folks under, were not designed to protect the politically popular. They were designed to protect folks who hadn't been politically popular. That's the great leveler – we can have laws and have constitutions that are resistant to that and can then be used to protect people who may be the subject of discrimination, who may have been denied access and resources that they need. And that's, at my core, where I get my drive to live up to serving without fear or favor.
On the issues at the forefront of voters’ minds
A lot of voters are feeling, I think, very overwhelmed. There's a lot of things happening, a lot of moving parts. They need our help in putting those pieces together. And understanding when you've got limited bandwidth, limited time – how do I learn about the candidates that I need to learn about? Where do I find trusted resources? I'm hearing that we need to step up. We collectively as a community, we as elected officials, need to step up to give people the information they need to navigate very noisy times.
When it comes to issues: People want to live and love in safety. They want to be able to take care of their families, put a safe roof over their heads, and just be free to find happiness every single day. That's what people care about. I think one of the more trite political sayings is: Make issues bread and butter for people. Get down to the basics. And I want to do that for judicial candidates, too. I want to explain to people about having just courts that appreciate the challenges facing returning citizens who have experienced an interaction with the criminal justice system, how courts that have justice-minded judges on the bench can help create a world, a state, where the economic challenges that hold back folks can be overcome. I want them to understand that the courts rule about issues that keep us in a safe environment. That a lot of folks, especially out east, whether it's coastal or in the Black Belt, are facing huge environmental challenges right now. I've spent some time at the Center for Energy Education, up in Roanoke Rapids. They're going around talking to voters about what resources are available to them to get energy audits to weatherproof their homes, to keep their energy costs in check so they can stay in their homes, build generational wealth, and protect this land for the next generation.
And groups like that are ready and willing and able to also talk about GOTV – get out the vote – in connection with that work, which makes it, I think, transformational instead of transactional. We're not knocking on your door, once every four years, because there's a presidential election. We're knocking on your door because we want you to build generational wealth for your family. To save this planet, for your grandchildren. And you will need to exercise your voice and your power at the ballot box, in addition to accessing these resources that are available to you from the federal government, the infrastructure funds. And there's a way to build in an understanding of how judicial races layer into that.
Justice Riggs (second from left) with FLIP NC’s Andrea Cash, Amy Cox, and Briana Brough at FLIP NC’s 2024 launch party
When [folks] talk to me about why they care about the environment, I tell them that when Democrats controlled the North Carolina Supreme Court, we saw decisions made that benefited the people in our environment. We saw the North Carolina Supreme Court say when big energy companies spill toxins into your lakes and your waters, your rivers, that they can't pass the cost of cleaning that up entirely off on consumers. What that does is push low-income families out of their homes because their bills fluctuate so much in the summer and in the winter. We saw the North Carolina Supreme Court say homeowners’ associations can't completely bar the ability of people to install solar panels on their roofs. So our courts are doing good things, consistent with their role. I mean, we're not policymakers; we're judges, but when we get to interpret the law, we can understand the ways in which how we interpret the law protects this planet.
On the importance of the state Supreme Court to North Carolinians’ day-to-day lives
The North Carolina Supreme Court is the highest court in the land. We get the final call on the state constitution, interpretation of state laws, and we see all kinds of cases come in front of us. We see cases involving the meaning of the constitutional provision for guaranteeing free elections.
We see cases on the North Carolina constitution's guarantee of the right to a sound, basic public education. We see a ton of criminal cases, and sometimes it can involve interpreting sentencing statutes. How long someone is going to be incarcerated after a conviction or a plea? Or it can be constitutional issues. Was there a Fourth Amendment issue? Was there an Eighth Amendment issue in the case? We see property rights zoning cases – so how land is being used for whatever purpose in this state. We see cases about children and families. There's an opioid crisis. This is not news to anyone. There's an opioid crisis across this country, and it's increasingly showing up in our courtrooms, in terms of families needing help with drug addiction and substance abuse counseling, mental health supports. Our North Carolina statutes say we prioritize family reunification, but it's very challenging in parts of the state to get substance abuse treatment or mental health treatment because of a lack of providers and distance and lack of public transportation.
So these are cases that are working their way up through the court system. Should the parent-child relationship be severed? Is there something that can be done to help reunify these families? Contracts issues, business court cases. The cases that we see run the full gamut.
There's a few things that I think are important for voters to understand about the court system. It's sort of a common saying that the wheels of justice turn slowly.
I think there's improvements that we can make to that, but they do [turn slowly]. A criminal case from the time of the incident until it gets fully resolved at the North Carolina Supreme Court can take years. Civil litigation – so in cases that I used to do, civil rights cases – it would be quite common for cases to take years.
It makes it challenging for voters to stay on top of what's happening with legal proceedings when it takes that long. I want to work in community with folks to help make it easier for people to understand where a case is in the development, in the process towards resolution.
I hope by me listing the kinds of cases that we hear, voters start to understand that there isn't an issue that they encounter in daily life that doesn't show up at some point in a North Carolina court. And addressing those concerns and those issues, you need to focus on electing good folks who will represent your interest at the local level and at the state level and at the judicial level.
One way I sort of like to describe it is: I don't think the solution exists in one branch alone. If you want the North Carolina that you dream of, you need to be exercising your voice and your power at the ballot box, on all of these different branches of government, levels of government, including the judicial branch.
On being a justice who is a woman of childbearing age during a time when reproductive rights are under attack
I think the fact that I represent a different generation, that I'm a voice for young voters and young women on the bench does matter.
I see that it mattered – not the age of the person serving, but the willingness to address the concerns of young people – in the Wisconsin Supreme Court elections recently. From all that I've studied there, there were two big issues that drove voters to the ballot box. It was gerrymandering and reproductive rights, and so Judge Janet [Protasiewicz] was elected to the Wisconsin Supreme Court, flipping control of that court, because young voters turned out en masse to demand justice for their bodies and for their ability to have a responsive government.
I'm hoping by talking about my experiences, by talking about the perspective and the voice that I bring, that young voters will hear in me someone who's going to lift up the concerns that they're raising. We've got now two generations, pushing a third, of young voters who are drowning in student debt, who feel like home ownership is out of reach for them, and now fear being told when and how they expand their family and take on that economic challenge. It's a lot. That's a bread and butter issue for them – this world is polarized and scary right now and being able to have that autonomy, that ability to say something about my body, my timing, is really important to voters. And so I hope that they hear that this is something that I am living right now, that I care about. And they can see a path over the next few election cycles to ensuring that they've got a majority of people on the bench willing to say, “Yes, your concern about controlling your own bodies is important and matters to me.”
On ending gerrymandering in our state, once and for all
Gerrymandering, I can say as a judge now and certainly based on my career, is toxic to how our democracy operates. It undermines the faith of voters that they get to pick their representatives, that they get to vote [them] out if they don't like what they're doing. I know that it is worth talking about and fighting against gerrymandering. Ultimately, there are, as a policy matter, definitely different ways to approach and combat gerrymandering. So some of those are not in my lane anymore.
But what I know about our constitution is that it provides protections for the right to vote and the right to vote in an unhindered, unrestricted, unrigged kind of way. I tell people that the drafters of our constitution knew what they were doing when they wrote: “We will have free elections in this state.” Free didn't mean no cover charge going into the ballot box. It included that, but it meant something more than that. That freedom is in the ability to demand accountability from your representatives. And when you draw district lines in a way that prevents voters who want something different from getting that out of our democracy, that's deeply problematic. And when we have people on our state's courts, our state's appellate courts, our state's Supreme Court, who believe their first job is to uphold the constitution – whether or not it's going to be politically popular on Jones Street, I'm going to uphold the constitution.
That's going to be key in ensuring that every election in this state is conducted in an accountable, transparent [way], and, in a way that gives voters the ability to choose their representatives, not the representatives picking their voters and pre-ordaining election outcomes.
Read parts 1, 3, and 4 of our conversation with Justice Riggs.