Chief justice’s family investment raises new ethical questions at the state Supreme Court
It seems like, once a month or so, the Republican justices on the North Carolina Supreme Court find new ways to surprise us with more corruption. These justices have ruled on cases involving companies that they partially own, allowed a justice to rule on cases involving his father, and refused to sanction Republican judges who admitted that they violated ethics rules.
And sadly, Chief Justice Paul Newby, who leads our state judiciary and sets the tone for other judges, might just be the jurist around whom the most questions swirl. When he took office in 2021, Chief Justice Newby fired the head of the Judicial Standards Commission, which investigates ethics complaints against judges. He has removed or reassigned judges that don’t always go along with the Republicans’ agenda.
Last week, we learned that Newby’s wife owns stock in Plasma Games, an educational software company that has received nearly $10 million in the legislature’s recent budgets, despite poor outcomes in North Carolina schools. An expose by the News & Observer found that Plasma Games has repeatedly received state money, despite education officials telling them that students weren’t learning from the game. The vast majority of the games—80%—weren’t even activated.
Newby reported on disclosure forms that his wife has had at least $10,000 invested in Plasma Games since 2020, when it first received state funding. Rep. Donny Lambeth, a Forsyth County Republican who writes the House budgets, said that he was unaware of the Newby family’s investment. Rep. Marcia Morey, a Democrat and former judge, said that “the more we’re finding out, the more it seems to be unethical.” The News & Observer noted that the company’s founder has given campaign cash to Republicans, including Chief Justice Newby.
The chief justice’s wife has a similar stake in dozens of other companies, including Duke Energy. Justice Tamara Barringer and Court of Appeals Judge Valerie Zachary, both Republicans, also reported that their families owned at least $10,000 worth of Duke Energy, a massive power company that has wielded significant influence in state politics.
Inflation has happened across the state in recent years, but Duke Energy is the only company whose price hikes are currently being appealed to the North Carolina Supreme Court. In February, Attorney General Josh Stein appealed a decision to approve a price increase for Duke Energy’s customers, whose budgets have already been stretched thin.
Customers are already feeling the impact of this price increase, while the justices decide whether to hear the case. The company has announced big spending plans since the state approved the increase, and the prospects for the company’s stock are looking brighter. If the justices don’t block the price increase, Duke Energy’s stock could go up even further. This would make the Barringer and Newby families even richer.
Despite this glaring conflict of interest, there’s zero reason to think these Republican justices will recuse themselves from appeals involving Duke Energy, the company that they partly own. Newby has ruled on half a dozen cases involving the company, always ruling in the company’s favor.
And we’ve seen how this court has handled other conflicts of interest, such as Republican Justice Phil Berger Jr. ruling on lawsuits against his father, Senate President Pro Tem Phil Berger. Before the GOP gained control of the high court in 2023, Justice Berger Jr. unilaterally decided to keep himself on his father’s cases. But with his Republican allies in control since 2023, he has referred the question of recusal in his father’s cases to the rest of the court.
The court has, more than once, ruled on party lines to allow Justice Berger Jr. to rule on lawsuits against Sen. Berger Sr. A few weeks ago, the Republican justices allowed Justice Berger Jr. to participate in lawsuits challenging new bills that give his father more power. The majority ruled that the justice could rule on his father’s case, because his father was being sued in his “official capacity” as the head of the state senate.
But the dissent, written by Justice Allison Riggs and joined by Justice Anita Earls, noted that one of the disputed bills “expands Senator Berger’s political influence by giving him control over multiple appointments to wide ranging executive and regulatory bodies.” Riggs warned that a ruling to uphold the bills would “augment Senator Berger’s political power and influence.”
These conflicts of interest are glaring and absurd. As the dissenters noted, this unethical behavior flies in the face of the North Carolina Code of Judicial Conduct. These rules require judges to sit out any cases involving their family members, including cousins and nieces or nephews. Letting a judge rule on his father’s case is like letting a parent be an umpire at their child’s baseball game. It’s clearly not fair, and the stakes are infinitely higher in Berger Sr.’s case.
The code also says that judges should recuse themselves from cases in which their spouse “has a financial interest in the subject matter in controversy or in a party to the proceeding, or any other interest that could be substantially affected by the outcome of the proceeding.” The code is concerned with preventing even the appearance of bias, but the Republican justices aren’t concerned.
But because Newby, Berger Sr., and House Speaker Tim Moore have packed the Judicial Standards Commission, these Republican judges are unlikely to face any serious official scrutiny for flouting the ethics rules. And as we’ve seen, even if the commission recommends sanctions, the justices won’t approve sanctions for Republican judges.
This means that it’s up to ordinary North Carolinians to hold accountable the justices and the unscrupulous GOP lawmakers supporting them. We can tell our neighbors and friends about the justices’ refusal to follow ethics rules. Some of them may have heard about the corruption on the U.S. Supreme Court, but not the corruption on their state’s highest court.
Fortunately for us, the justices in Raleigh don’t have life tenure. The voters ultimately decide who wields power in North Carolina’s courts.