There must be some sort of planetary alignment taking place today: Duke, UNC, and NC State all play in the NCAA men's basketball tournament, the new iPad goes on sale, and best of all, it is time for another news roundup. 1. This week's headlines center on Forsyth County, because the state supreme court just suspended District Court Judge Denise Hartsfield, without pay, for 75 days. The court's opinion is here. The judge's conduct seems to have included having a clerk transfer motor vehicle cases from other judges' calendars to her own when the cases involved the judge's friends or acquaintances. The judge would speak with the defendants ex parte outside of court, and then would enter favorable dispositions in the cases, all without hearing the cases in court and without requiring the defendants to appear or to enter a plea. The Winston-Salem Journal has more here. Former Forsyth County District Attorney Tom Keith, who first reported the judge's misconduct, is quoted as calling the sanction a "slap on the wrist." The School of Government played a minor role in the matter. Faculty member Jim Drennan advised Judge Hartsfield to stop another of the practices at issue in the disciplinary proceedings: she disagreed with the prosecution's policy of refusing to dismiss DWLR cases upon the defendant's showing that he or she had subsequently obtained a valid license, so she often simply dismissed such charges on her own motion, without the consent of the prosecution and without a legal basis. 2. The [...]
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