Justice Anita Earls and the Court as an Institution: Part 1

The California Appellate Law Podcast

Justice Anita Earls of the North Carolina Supreme Court knows about some reforms that will improve our justice system. But she also knows about some that will provoke an unhappy response—including an investigation against her personally.

In this first part of our interview, we discuss Justice Earls’ path from a 30-year civil rights attorney to supreme court justice, and many data- and experience-driven reforms that aim to alleviate prison loads, criminal dockets, and get juveniles reformed rather than mired in the penal system. We also discuss some positive civil-rights trajectories over her career (such as increased scrutiny of abusive police practices), and not-so-positive trajectories (such as qualified immunity, as ever, a parade of absurdities).

This will set us up to discuss how Justice Earls found herself under investigation for calling for judicial reform, which we’ll cover in part two.

Anita Earls’ wiki, LinkedIn profile, and Twitter/X feed.

Appellate Specialist Jeff Lewis' biography, LinkedIn profile, and Twitter feed.

Appellate Specialist Tim Kowal's biography, LinkedIn profile, Twitter feed, and YouTube page.

Sign up for Not To Be Published, Tim Kowal’s weekly legal update, or view his blog of recent cases.

Other items discussed in the episode:

• https://www.fd.org/news/lone-black-nc-supreme-court-justice-drops-suit-over-diversity-comments-probe-dropped
• https://apnews.com/article/north-carolina-justice-ethics-drops-lawsuit-24763cfa64aca0fc58e559ca4ffe5cf9
• https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/31/us/north-carolina-supreme-court-anita-earls-bias.html
• https://news.un.org/en/story/2024/02/1146202
• https://apnews.com/article/north-carolina-supreme-court-justice-ethics-panel-b9ce0a7b9e5ab2c7dcbed02d6c74faed
• Additionally, an interview she conducted with State Court Report and NYU Law Review: https://statecourtreport.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/conversation-justice-anita-earls-north-carolina-supreme-court
• Videos from this episode will be posted at Tim Kowal’s YouTube channel.