North Carolina state Supreme Court Justice Anita Earls filed a voluntary dismissal of her federal lawsuit against the N.C. Judicial Standards Commission, the judiciary’s ethical body, on Wednesday, according to a press release from her attorney.
Earls dropped the lawsuit after the JSC dismissed the complaint against her, the press release read. The JSC’s decision is final and it will not be taking disciplinary action against Earls.
However, the underlying legal question about whether the JSC should be taking disciplinary action over statements made by judges and justices and whether this infringes on First Amendment rights remains unanswered.
“There’s nothing pending,” said Earls’ attorney, Press Millen, in a phone interview Wednesday with Carolina Public Press. “I’m glad the case is over and I’m hopeful that Justice Earls won’t face further investigations into her speech in the future.”
Earls had filed a federal lawsuit last August, seeking to protect her First Amendment rights. She accused the JSC of infringing on her rights by considering disciplinary action for her public statements on judicial diversity, after an anonymous complaint was brought against her to the JSC.
The consequences of the complaint could have cost her her job. Her case against the commission had bipartisan support, CPP reported in August.
Earls explained her decision to drop the lawsuit in a written statement in the press release.
“I continue to believe that the First Amendment protects my ability to speak about matters of racial equity in the legal system,” she wrote.
“However, I see no need to continue the litigation since the Commission has dismissed the complaint against me and at this time I no longer face being disciplined by the Court. I am enormously grateful to all the individuals and organizations, in North Carolina and nationally, who supported me while this case was pending.”
CPP reached out to Earls for further comment, but she declined.
Earls was elected to the state Supreme Court in 2018 and is the only Black woman and one of two Democrats on a predominantly Republican state Supreme Court bench. She is currently the Senior Associate Justice of the Court and plans on running for election again when her eight-year term expires in 2026, according to the press release.
State Rep. Marcia Morey, D-Durham, said she doesn’t think the issue at large, of whether the JSC should be taking disciplinary action against judges and justices for their speech, has been resolved.
“Will this dismissal of the case put this issue to bed? I doubt it will,” said Morey.
But the dismissal of the complaint “signals that Justice Earls has every right to speak out on issues and the judiciary and that doing so only upholds the the Judicial Canon for justices to ensure impartiality and promote integrity, which she’s trying to do by pointing out some flaws,” Morey said.
“I hope she continues to do so.”
The public won’t know who filed the complaint against Earls to the JSC, because complaints are filed confidentially, she added.
Dallas Woodhouse, the North Carolina executive director of American Majority, said he questions whether recent changes, which resulted in Judge Chris Dillon being replaced with Court of Appeals Judge Jeffery Carpenter as the chair of the JSC, have something to do with the dismissal of the complaint against Earls.
Woodhouse formerly served as the executive director of the state Republican Party from 2015-19.
“I would like to defend Earls’ right to say what she said, even though I think it’s disruptive to the court,” Woodhouse said. “I’ve advocated that we get the JSC out of the business of investigating speech.”
Woodhouse also said the larger question of whether the JSC should be investigating public or political speech still remains unanswered, but the dismissal of the complaint seems like a positive step.
“I hope this is going in the right direction,” he said. “But eventually the (state) Supreme Court itself has to get there and rewrite the canon.”
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