GOP’s Viser captures Superior Court race; incumbent Dems return to District Court
Casey Viser had been appointed to two judgeships. On Tuesday night, he won his next courts job outright.
The 48-year-old Republican had 53.67% of the vote in the race to fill a new Superior Court seat in Mecklenburg County, based on complete but unofficial results. Democrat Alicia Brooks, 54, who faced Viser in a 2014 race for District Court, had 46.33%.
Viser’s 5,000-plus vote lead held up for most of the night.
Six years ago, Brooks beat Viser in their countywide court race. Tuesday’s election, however, was limited to a heavily Republican district in south Mecklenburg, stretching from southeast Charlotte to Matthews and Mint Hill.
Two other competitive races saw Democratic incumbents in Charlotte-Mecklenburg claim new four-year terms in District Court with landslide wins.
▪ Rex Marvel, who was appointed to the District bench by Gov. Roy Cooper in 2019, earned a 150,000-plus win over Republican Sunny Panyanouvoung-Rubeck, an assistant public defender and former Laotian immigrant vying to become the county’s first Asian-American judge.
Marvel, also a former public defender, received 64.58% of the vote in their countywide race; Panyanouvoung-Rubeck trailed with 35.42%.
▪ Veteran District Court Judge Kimberly Best, earning her fourth four-year term, took 66.17% of the vote, compared with 33.83% for Pat Finn, a former Catawba County prosecutor who lives near Mountain Island Lake.
Ten incumbent District Court judges, all Democrats, ran unopposed and will serve new four-year terms. They are: Chief District Judge Elizabeth Trosch; Renee Little; Roy Wiggins; Aretha Blake; Jena Culler; Donald Cureton; Faith Fickling-Alvarez; Ty Hands; Gary Henderson, and Christy Mann.
Superior Court judges handle felonies and jury trials for both criminal and civil cases and hear cases from Charlotte to the Tennessee line. They serve eight-year terms and are now required by the N.C. Legislature to run under partisan political labels. District Court judges handle such cases as misdemeanors and traffic charges.
In 2014, a year after Viser was appointed to the District Court, he lost his seat to Brooks. This time, the two faced each other in a smaller Republican-friendly district, part of a controversial judicial election map that Republican legislators said better reflected the county’s voting and population changes. Critics said GOP lawmakers carved it out to elect Republican judges.
Viser, a Charlotte native and a married father of three, becomes the second Republican among the eight Superior Court judges. He portrays himself as a traditional jurist who interprets the law but does not try to make it.
Former Republican Gov. Pat McCrory appointed Viser to be a special Superior Court judge in 2015, meaning he heard cases across the state. He will assume office against the backdrop of nationwide protests following the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis while in police custody over how Black Americans are treated in the criminal justice system, including the courts.
In 2018, Republicans not only changed the lines to create more GOP-friendly districts, they also required judges to run in districts for the first time. Up to then, the races had been countywide decisions.
Brooks was an early casualty. The longtime Matthews resident suddenly found herself in a Republican majority district. After her re-election loss in 2018, Brooks joined a lawsuit that once again allowed all Mecklenburg County voters to pick District Court judges.
Now, Brooks supports a change in the law that would make Superior Court races countywide affairs as well — a change in Mecklenburg County that would undoubtedly benefit Democrats.
“Our entire community deserves to choose its judges, not just a small segment of our population,” Brooks told the Observer. “Judges are public servants who preside over all cases brought in Mecklenburg County.”
This story was originally published November 3, 2020 at 8:47 PM.
