Revisiting Simeon v. Hardin: Part I, Pretrial Delay

Last year, I blogged about calendaring practices and whether it is appropriate for an ADA to unilaterally reset a matter in superior court after the court has approved a date for trial. In writing and teaching on calendaring authority, I am surprised how few practitioners are familiar with the landmark case of Simeon v. Hardin, 339 N.C. 358 (1994), which turned 30 years old last year. The case was the culmination of longstanding debates about what constitutes proper exercise of the district attorney’s calendaring authority, and how the court’s “ultimate authority” over the trial calendar interacts with the state’s authority. Id. at 376. See State v. Mitchell, 298 N.C. 549, 554 (1979) (referring to the matter as a “continuing controversy” fifteen years before Simeon). The case still has much to offer in 2025, as the questions it raises about pretrial delay, “orderly” administration of the trial calendar, fair play and notice, and judge shopping remain highly relevant. This series of posts revisits Simeon v. Hardin and considers how it informs the calendaring dilemmas of today. The Simeon case was animated by complaints of a litany of calendaring authority abuses by the Durham County District Attorney. Rather than challenging these alleged abuses in the context of individual criminal cases, the various defendants chose to organize their concerns into one large class-action case. Thus, the procedural posture of Simeon is unusual in that the case was civil in nature rather than criminal. The criminal defendants turned plaintiffs sought to certify a class whereby [...]