The author says North Carolina Chief Justice Paul Newby has taken several actions that clearly violate standards of judicial ethics. (Photo: North Carolina Supreme Court livestream)
It seems like about once a month the Republican justices on the North Carolina Supreme Court find new ways to surprise us with more corruption. These justices have ruled on matters involving companies that they were part owners, a judge allowed to rule about cases involving his father, and refused to sanction Republican judges who have admitted that they broke the law ethical rules.
And unfortunately, Chief Justice Paul Newby, who leads our state judiciary and sets the tone for other judges, may be the jurist about whom the most questions arise. When he took office in 2021, Chief Justice Newby was shot the head of the Judicial Standards Commission, which investigates ethical complaints against judges. He has DELETED or relocated judges which do not always align with the Republican agenda.
Last week we learned that Newby’s wife owns stock in Plasma Games, an educational software company that has received nearly $10 million in recent legislative budgets despite poor performance in North Carolina schools. A revelation by the News & Observer discovered that Plasma Games repeatedly receive government moneydespite education officials telling them that students weren’t learning from the game. The vast majority of games—80%—were never even activated.
Newby reported on disclosure forms that his wife has invested at least $10,000 in Plasma Games since 2020, when it first received state funding. Rep. Donny Lambeth, a Forsyth County Republican who writes the House budgets, said he was unaware of the Newby family’s investment. Rep. Marcia Morey, a Democrat and former judge, said “the more we learn, the more unethical it seems.” News & Observer noted that the company’s founder has donated campaign funds to Republicans, including Chief Justice Newby.
The chief justice’s wife has a similar stake in dozens of other companies, including Duke Energy. Appeals Court Judge Tamara Barringer and Judge Valerie Zachary, both Republicans, also reported that their families owned Duke Energy, a major energy company with significant influence on state politics, is worth at least $10,000.
Inflation has been occurring across the state in recent years, but Duke Energy is the only company whose price increases are currently on appeal to the North Carolina Supreme Court. In February, Attorney General Josh Stein said appealed against a decision to approve a price increase for Duke Energy’s already tight budget customers.
Customers are already feeling the impact of this price increase as judges decide whether to hear the case. The company has announced major spending plans since the state approved the increase, and the outlook for the company’s stock is look brighterIf the judges don’t block the price increase, Duke Energy’s stock price could rise even higher, making the Barringer and Newby families even richer.
Despite this blatant conflict of interest, there is no reason to think that these Republican judges will recuse themselves from hearing appeals against Duke Energy, the company they partially own. Newby has ruling made in half a dozen cases in which the company is involved and in which the decision is always made in favor of the company.
And we’ve seen this court handle other conflicts of interest, such as Republican Justice Phil Berger Jr.’s ruling on lawsuits against his father, Senate President Pro Tem Phil Berger. Before the GOP took control of the Supreme Court in 2023, Justice Berger Jr. unilaterally decided to keep himself on his father’s cases. But now that his Republican allies have been in control since 2023, he has referred the issue of recusal in his father’s cases to the rest of the court.
The court has more than once ruled on party lines to allow Judge Berger Jr. to rule in lawsuits against Senator Berger Sr. A few weeks ago, the Republican judges have allowed Judge Berger Jr. to participate in lawsuits challenging new legislative proposals that give his father more powerThe majority ruled that the judge could rule on his father’s case because his father was being charged in his “official capacity” as head of the Senate.
But the dissent, written by Justice Allison Riggs and joined by Justice Anita Earls, noted that one of the challenged bills “increases Senator Berger’s political influence by giving him control over multiple appointments to a variety of executive and regulatory agencies.” Riggs warned that a ruling to uphold the bills “would increase Senator Berger’s political power and influence.”
These conflicts of interest are blatant and absurd. As the dissenters noted, this unethical behavior violates the North Carolina Code of Judicial Conduct, which requires judges to disregard all cases involving their family members, including nieces and nephews. Allowing a judge to rule on his father’s case is like allowing a parent to umpire their child’s baseball game. It’s clearly not fair, and the stakes are infinitely higher in Berger Sr.’s case.
The code also says that judges must recuse themselves from cases in which their spouse “has a financial interest in the subject matter of the dispute or in a party to the proceedings, or any other interest that could be substantially affected by the outcome of the proceedings.” The code is aimed at avoiding even the appearance of bias, but the Republican judges aren’t concerned about that.
But as Newby, Berger Sr. and House Speaker Tim Moore the Judicial Standards Commission was fullthese Republican judges are unlikely to come under serious fire from the administration for violating ethics rules. And as we have seen, even if the committee recommends sanctions, the judges will not approve sanctions for Republican judges.
This means that it is up to ordinary North Carolinians to hold the judges and the unscrupulous GOP legislators who support them accountable. We can tell our neighbors and friends about the judges’ refusal to follow ethics rules. Some of them may have heard about the corruption on the U.S. Supreme Court, but not about the corruption on their state’s highest court.
Fortunately for us, the judges in Raleigh do not have lifetime appointments. The voters ultimately determine who holds power in the North Carolina courts.
