trending
“That’s an enormous
change,” Jackson says. “We’ve
been running in the range of
about 75-90 cases per year.
Adding 100 cases is a huge
impact. We haven’t reached
a final decision how we’re
going to handle them.”
Unlike the U.S. Supreme
Court, where justices are
appointed for life, state jus-tices
serve at the pleasure of
the voters. Elections are held
in even-numbered years,
and judges serve six-year
terms.
“There’s no perfect
system,” Jackson says. “I’m
partial to the voters because
they’ve elected me twice. I’ll
be honest about that. If we’d
had an appointment system
when I ran the first time
and the second time, I can’t
imagine I would have been
selected, given that the
governor was a Democrat in
both of those instances.”
She ran in nonpartisan
races when she was elected
to the Court of Appeals
and the Supreme Court.
Because of a change in the
state’s voting law, Jackson,
a Republican, is running
for re-election this year in
a partisan race for the first
time.
Although she’ll have an
“R” by her name on the ballot for the first time, she doesn’t see much
difference.
“I’ve run two nonpartisan races and I’ve won two nonpartisan races, so I
had no problem with the nonpartisan system of running whatsoever,” she
says. “By the same token, I know that during those election campaigns
both political parties were very involved on behalf of the candidate they
supported. What I saw was both parties trying to get information to their
voters about who the candidates were from their party.”
Despite the disparity in political philosophies between the two
North Carolina Supreme Court Justice Barbara Jackson, who with her husband keeps a vacation home at Kure
Beach, swears in new police officers in Wilmington on July 6.
parties, Jackson says the differences can be overblown when it
comes to the court. On the whole, the justices function in a collegial
atmosphere.
“We get along really well,” she says. “One of the things we do when-ever
we have court is have lunch together and talk and catch up with
each other. The thing that gets missed — and I think this happens a lot
at the U.S. Supreme Court too — is most of our opinions are unanimous,
75 to 80 percent of them. It’s probably a little more interesting to read
about the disagreements.”
20
WBM october 2018
PHOTOS BY ALLISON POTTER