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156 Judicial Candidates Sign Pledge

Article Date: Wednesday, July 23, 2008

Written By: Russell Rawlings

The North Carolina Bar Association has asked judicial candidates throughout the state of North Carolina to sign a voluntary resolution in support of ethical campaign practices.

A resolution, adopted by the NCBA's Board of Governors in 2002, calls for judicial candidates to preserve the integrity, impartiality, and dignity of the judiciary by avoiding comment on pending cases and issues which might come before the court.  It also asks judicial candidates to avoid derogatory comments about, or negative references to, competing candidates.

Since the changes to the Code of Judicial Conduct in the late 1990s, the North Carolina Bar Association has continuously studied the problems negative campaigns might evoke.  It is our hope that North Carolina's judicial candidates will voluntarily pledge to conduct their campaign activities so as to keep the judicial bench above reproach and maintain respect for our judicial system.

For the 2008 election season, 156 of 223 candidates have signed the pledge. These are candidates for District Court, Superior Court, the N.C. Court of Appeals and the N.C. Supreme Court.

Click here for a list of names of those judicial candidates who pledged to abide by these principles and signed the NCBA resolution.

Click here to access the NCBA resolution.

Editor's note: Despite our best efforts, situations will occur in which judicial candidates fail to receive notice from the NCBA asking that they sign the resolution. In these instances, candidates not appearing on the list are urged to contact Courtney Denning in the NCBA Office of Governmental Affairs, either by phone (800-662-7407/677-0561) or e-mail (cdenning@ncbar.org ). The NCBA apologies for any inconvenience these procedures may have caused candidates who want to sign the resolution and will add their names to the listing above upon receipt thereof.