A judicial rematch: Candidates face off for second time, now for Superior Court seat
Different job. Different set of voters. Yet the race between Casey Viser and Alicia Brooks for a south Mecklenburg seat on the N.C. Superior Court still qualifies as a “do-over.”
In 2014, Viser, a Republican, and Brooks, a Democrat, ran against each other for a seat on District Court, to which Viser had been appointed and was trying to win outright. Brooks won the non-partisan, countywide race.
This time, Viser again is a sitting judge — then-Gov. Pat McCrory appointed him as a special Superior Court jurist in 2015, a job that has taken the 48-year-old Viser to courtrooms all over the state.
Now, he and Brooks are competing for a new seat on Superior Court. It was created as part of a controversial plan by Republicans in the N.C. legislature to draw smaller districts. The authors said the new lines better reflected voting patterns and population shifts. Critics described the effort as legislative meddling to elect more GOP judges in the state’s largest local court system, a system dominated by Democratic judges.
Brooks was an early casualty. The Matthews resident lost her 2018 bid for re-election to District Court, she says, because she was a longtime resident of what was suddenly a smaller Republican-heavy district and refused to move. Before 2018, District Court judges were selected in a countywide vote. After her loss, Brooks joined a lawsuit that returned District Court elections to countywide affairs.
But Brooks is running for Superior Court now, and finds herself facing the same political challenges running in a Republican-friendly district. This time, the race has a different backdrop: The death of George Floyd ignited a summer of demonstrations in Charlotte, along with a sharper focus on how Black people are treated in the courts.
Moreover, both Brooks and Viser say they lament the partisan politics that have seeped into even local court races.
Viser believes the the bitter congressional fight over the appointment of Amy Coney Barrett to the U.S. Supreme Court could very well influence down-ballot races like his own.
“How can it not?” Viser says. “Bitter partisan politics affect voter perceptions. I’ve gone to early-voting sites and heard people equate the Superior Court with the Supreme Court. I’ve been asked by people, ‘Why do we elect judges?’ I’ve had people tell me, ‘I don’t vote for judges because they’re too important and I don’t want to make a mistake.”
Superior Court judges handle jury trials for felonies and more serious civil disputes in Mecklenburg and across western North Carolina. Viser or Brooks will become the eighth Superior Court judge in the Mecklenburg courthouse.
The election will be determined by voters who live in a swath of about 100,000 people stretching from southeast Charlotte east to Matthews and Mint Hill.
In Viser and Brooks, they have qualified neighbors to choose from.
Brooks, 54, is a Fayetteville native, wife and mother of three who has served across the criminal justice system — as a former prosecutor with the Mecklenburg District Attorney’s Office and as an assistant public defender. During her time as a District Court judge, she also volunteered to work in the county’s Mental Health and Truancy courts.
She says she supports increased technology throughout the state courts, particularly electronic filing, that would make the system more responsive to legal parties and the public at large.
Brooks says she believes that implicit bias still impacts what happens in the county courthouse, despite the fact that Mecklenburg is one of the country’s leaders in addressing the issue.
As a judge, Brooks said she examined her own actions, thoughts and biases before making a decision. “In each of my positions, I addressed the issue by being aware, being vocal and being intentional in weeding it out and correcting those who were complicit,” she said in an email to the Observer.
She also says she supports a change in the law that would allow voters throughout the county to choose Superior Court judges.
“Our entire community deserves to choose its judges, not just a small segment of our population,” she says. “Judges are public servants who preside over all cases brought in Mecklenburg County.”
Viser, if elected, would become the second Republican on the county’s Superior Court bench. Lisa Bell, elected as a Republican, changed her status to unaffiliated.
Viser declined to comment on how voters choose judges, citing judicial canons that prohibit judges from commenting on pending cases or statewide controversies.
“It’s not my role to dispute what the legislature or Congress has created,” he said. “The framers (of the Constitution) did not intend for the judicial branch to make policy.”
Viser, married and also a father of three, is a Charlotte native. He said his experience as a lawyer and judge, coupled with his demeanor, makes him an effective judge.
“Good people make mistakes. People have to be held accountable for making those mistakes. That’s where empathy comes in,” he says.
Asked about implicit bias, Viser said, “I’m sure it exists, but not in my courtroom.”
“I took an oath to apply the law evenly and fairly, to administer justice without favoritism or prejudice toward anyone. I take that oath seriously,” he said. “I don’t think that because I’m a white male or because I have an ‘R’ next to my name that people should assume I’m biased.”
He said any bias that still exists is being mitigated by the changes in the county’s demographics. “You’re never going to see an all-white jury again. That’s not the racial makeup of our society any more. I think a lot of what people see as systemic racism is changing by virtue of all the changes in the racial makeup of our society.
“Which is a good thing.”
Mecklenburg District Court
Most of the District Court incumbents on Tuesday’s ballot, all of them Democrats, are running unopposed. Look close enough, and you’ll find two competitive races: Kimberly Best vs. Pat Finn, and Rex Marvel vs. Sunny Panyanouvong-Rubeck.
District Court judges can handle a herculean case load — from misdemeanors and traffic violations, to domestic violence, divorces and child custody. In just about all, those on the bench serve as both judge and jury.
Best, a Democrat, is seeking her fourth term. The Detroit native came to Charlotte more than 20 years ago and first worked as a high school Spanish teacher. She later used her law degree to become a magistrate and eventually opened her own law firm. She was first elected as a judge in 2008.
“I vowed to treat everyone with respect and dignity and ensure the solution to each matter that comes before me is as unique as the individuals involved within the confines of the law. This remains my judicial philosophy,” Best says, in a statement on her website.
Best, a certified juvenile judge, also presides over the county’s Wellness Court for those suffering with mental illness. She also handles expungements for residents seeking to clear their criminal records.
Best is active in Race Matters for Juvenile Justice, a nationally acclaimed Mecklenburg program addressing implicit bias in the community and within the courts.
Republican Finn, a Charlotte native, is a former assistant prosecutor in Catawba County who specialized in District Court cases, including juveniles, according to his website. He says he regularly handled dockets involving hundreds of cases each day.
In 2015, the Charlotte School of Law graduate started his own firm and now practices in both District and Superior courts.
He remains active in Juvenile and Family courts, and serves as a court-appointed guardian ad litem and represents clients in competency hearings and involuntary commitments.
He says his breadth of experience “drives his commitment to fairness and just application of the law.”
Marvel v. Panyanouvong-Rubeck
Both candidates in this race are products of the Mecklenburg County Public Defender’s Office.
Panyanouvong-Rubeck, a Republican, immigrated to Charlotte from Laos with her family in 1981. She is now in charge of the public defender’s felony drug unit.
Among the endorsements listed on her campaign website is one from her boss, longtime Public Defender Kevin Tully.
Panyanouvong-Rubeck is the first member of her family to graduate from college, earning her degree from UCLA before finishing law school at N.C. Central.
She says her background as an immigrant and her embrace of her adopted country’s commitment to constitutional freedoms fed her dream of becoming part a judicial system “that treated everyone with fairness and equality.” If elected, she would become the first Asian-American on the Mecklenburg bench.
Marvel, a Democratic incumbent, was appointed to the District Court in 2019 by Gov. Roy Cooper after being nominated by the Mecklenburg County Bar.
As part of the nominating process, Marvel noted that his time in District Court as an attorney taught him what he wanted to be as a judge.
“Like most attorneys I know what separates an average judge from a great one,” he wrote in 2019. “Not only do our best judges come to court on time, know the law and treat everyone with respect, they also hold a deep-rooted admiration for the importance of the position.
“I do not want to become a judge for the title or salary — I want to be a judge because I wholeheartedly believe in the crucial impact a great District Court Judge can make.”
More than a dozen of his colleagues on the bench have endorsed him.
So has Tully.
