2008 Election: Mecklenburg County Judge Candidates
I am putting together some information about the Mecklenburg County Judges up for election this year. Please share any information or experiences you've had with the candidates shown below... Good or bad!
My goal in collecting this information is to provide information about the Judges to the public with the hopes that concerned citizens will VOTE the 'slack' Judges OUT! You many comment publicly on this site, e-mail me or use the anonymous comment form. Thank you for your help!
2008 Candidates: Mecklenburg County District Court (26) Judge
- Stephen W. Kearney
- William R. Soukup
- Ronald L. Chapman
- Donnie Hoover
- Daniel Powers Roberts
- John Totten
- Gary L. Henderson
- Roderick Wright
- Kimberly Y. Best
- Theo X. Nixon
- Elizabeth Thornton Trosch
- William Irwin Belk
Useful Link: Mecklenburg County Board of Elections
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36 Comments:
The most important vote you can cast! Research your judges! This is the only vote that matters!
THIS IS A GREAT IDEA !!
Hugh Lewis is one of the few who is tough on criminals. I hope he stays on the bench. Better yet, I hope he gets on the Superior Court bench.
The Democratic party was successful in removing the party affiliation from the ballot listing for judges.
This was a clever, indirect way to help keep the more conservative judges off the bench, as most voters are unaware of the politics and party affiliation of individual judges running for election.
You end up Liberal with Hug-a-Thug judges getting elected, since many voters can't identify the tough-on-crime candidates.
We only have experience with Fritz Mercer and he's thinking about his golf game or something else while hearing these cases because he just slashes bond on dangerous, violent criminals with over 50
prior arrests down to nothing!
Attempted murder should be no bond; instead he cut it from 215,000 to 30,000. Why?
Excellent!!!!!!!!!!!!
I plan to share this with EVERYBODY
Ecellent board.... Vote the thug huggers out!
BRING BACK THE PARTY AFFILIATIONS!!!
I will keep checking back here to see what you, most informed, people find out. I will trust but verify, as Ronald Reagan once said. I also wish Tara on 1110 would go more into depth on her website on which of these judges are hug-a-thugs. I also am sick and tired of criminals with LCRs getting on the streets to finally commit a murder or rape.
M-
I'd like to see a list of the worst offenders with lengthy arrest records.
Beside each offense, the down and dirty details.
Bond details, sentencing details and any other pertinent info, AND the presiding judge over each.
This could be further enhanced by a list of judges and their "stats" as they correspond to the repeat offender list details.
I bet a lot of them will squirm when they read it. Especially near election time.
This would be time consuming, and require resources. Maybe a Judge who actually "gets it" would consider it a campaign expense and sponsor someone with the expertise to do such a thing.
I am a police officer in Charlotte. Hugh Lewis gets my vote first. He is tough on criminals.
Vote for Louis Trosch and Fritz Mercer. They max them out every time! I am with the CMPD, so I go every two weeks usually, so I know that they are great judges. Don't vote for the liberal thug-hugging judges!
I didn't read 8:59 am's comment, but I just sent in the one about him being tough on crime and he certainly is! I have never seen him soft on crime. He's the one that sided with the police and who tried to remove the hug-a-thug judge too! Mercer is a-okay!
Fritz Mercer just slashed a known felon's bond two weeks' ago from 215,000 to 30,000 with no valid reasoning for the reduction. Look up the record of Cedric Gaston, and you
will not believe this judge is tough at all.
I don't know who is up for re-election but here are some social working judges in District Court:
1) Nancy Norelli
2) Rickye McKoy Mitchell
3) Regan Miller
If you are curious about the mentality of a judge who running for the first time.... If they worked for the public defenders office, it is a good chance (not 100%)they will be the hug a thug type. Prosecutors make the best judges.
I am a 54 yr old woman who used to vote throughout the years for Judge Thomas Moore; after a personal court room experience with this judge, my respect and support in the voter booth has been forever changed by that experience. The unprofessional manner this judge exhibited in forming his decision in my case was appalling. I and my family now see him as a judge on the bench who whips-out 'guilty' verdicts without bothering to look at one page of evidence (in a pile of 50 pages).This makes him a bad judge. Thomas Moore touts 'experience' for his campaign slogan; I say he has been on the bench far too long. In my case a certifiably mentally ill woman with a well known and documented life-long history of causing false arrests on innocent people she did not like through magistrates, caused me to appear before judge Thomas Moore. After hearing all of my false accusers testimony without any proof at all other than her word, this judge waved his hand over the pile of evidence I had proving my innocence, and without reading a word of it declared me 'guilty' and sentenced me to 45 days! Even courtroom attorneys were stunned as was I. I have never been arrested in my 54 yrs of life, had no previous record, am a single mother without family to take care of my minor child while I delt with this! Later, after appeal all charges were dropped. When people accused of committing a crime and may be innocent come before a judge like this, it is no wonder respect is lost for the court. I lost all respect for this judge as has my family and many friends who well know this was an appalling and unprofessional courtroom experience; they no longer vote for him. Such unprofessionalism shows this judge has been on the bench far too long when he can gingerly wave his hand dismissing hard evidence showing proof of innocence causing harm to the truely innocent. It is inexcusable. He needs to retire period.
You need one to list the magistrates.......there are some magistrates that need to be looked into!!
Who is tough on crime? The best of the best are: Tom Moore, Todd Owens, Hugh Lewis!!!! Though I feel for the person who says she was wrongly accused-There afore mentioned judges are usually the best at seeing through the BS. They aren't afraid to put someone in jail-the especially are hard on repeat offenders. Mercer, Mann and Trosch are pretty fair. Worst of the worst?? Norelli, hands down!! She needs to change professions and be a director of child care!!!!
we need to look into some of Charlottes career criminals and see who the judges are and DO NOT RE ELECT!!!!!!!!!
Since there are some conflicting opinions about which judges are supertough, I hope to ask a few "real" police officers who the best judges are. I am not saying the aforementioned police officer post are not legit, there just is no way of knowing.
M-
Lewis is a great choice! He is hard on criminals but also is very involved in the rehabilitation of parents whose children are taken from them and seems to be very fair when making his decisions.
To the lady that was "wronged" by Judge Moore: I would like to hear the other side of the story. What you consider "evidence," was likely what is considered "irrelevant evidence" and thus can't be considered by a judge at trial per the law. Sounds like you made the decision to represent yourself; if you were so interested in your "innocence" you should've hired someone who knows the law. Judge Moore is completely professional and is one of ther very few district court judges that actually knows the law and keeps up with it. Judge Moore is also one of the few judges that is not scared to hold defense attorneys accountable who do not appear in court for their clients (a regular occurrence for a specific handful of defense attorneys). He is the epitome of professionalism and knowledge of the law. You are just upset because you lost. I am sure there are millions of reasons cases are dropped on appeal (volume/witnesses moved out of state/etc) besides the reasoning of "gee, she's really innocent." Give me a break. Guilty verdict + irrelevant evidence does NOT = Unprofessionalism!
Judge Lewis is one of the FEW humble, knowledgable, caring judges we have who had retained his common sense and not gotten "robe-itis." He has good judgment and is extremely fair. A true servant of the people.
I wish the ADA's were elected. With the exception of a few...someone needs to clean house.
To 2:03pm: My “evidence” was 15 pages of telephone records subpoenaed from the telephone company paid for out of my own pocket proving my accuser never received a single phone call to her home from mine as I was accused of doing “dozens of times daily”. My accuser stated under oath I “called from my home”. Since I worked a 45 hr week during the all the times I was accused of calling and threatening her from my home phone, I subpoenaed the phone records and had a statement from my employer . I also had 10 pages of evidence of my accusers past history of falsely accusing no less than 6 other people she didn’t like of exactly the same thing she accused me of. It’s all in public records. Other pages of evidence were court records submitted proving this history. Other paperwork was a letter, written by my accusers own adult daughter to my lawyer, ( yes, I DID have a lawyer in court representing me). How did I finally have the charges dropped on appeal?-- the prosecutor dropped all charges on the grounds my accuser was ‘not credible’ when he was paid a personal visit by the daughter of my accuser, a wonderful professional young adult woman who never believed I could ever be convicted based on her mothers history. What did this almost do to me? As I didn’t have family, I had no one to care for my young son; I almost lost him to social services since no one was available to care for him. I lost wages from work, I lost my small savings account to hire an attorney to defend me, and I lost faith in the court due to a judge who had a busy docket and was only interested in clearing the docket for that day. I am not ‘upset I lost’, I was utterly devastated and he nearly traumatized the world of a small child as I was all that little boy had. If this is what you call “professionalism’, I feel sorry for you. Apparently it is okay to brand everyone accused in a court of law ‘guilty’. All I know is this judge swore an oath to uphold justice and the law; well he clearly was NOT INTERESTED that day. I have long debated going public with this incident every time I see him up for election. I have witnesses and still, to this day, I have EVERY PIECE of that evidence in my possession Judge Thomas Moore would not even touch. Sorry, he is an UNPROFESSIONAL JUDGE. I shall continue to voice to anyone who will listen to vote AGAINST him. If anyone from the press is interested in seeing for themself this evidence and all the documents, I will be more than glad to talk to them!
9:36am... Please email me @ kelly@crimeincharlotte.com
I'm with CMPD and I like Moore.....but, to each his own. And don't ask me to give an example, we are in court so much that everything kind of blends together, but I remember him being for the most part tough, but fair.
Tom Moore is a great judge. If we had more judges like him, there would be less crime in Charlotte.
Fritz Mercer is a liberal...
9:36, to make a very long story short. The local Police Dept and my frustrations of continued intimidation by a developer and high ranking fireman has hit a brick wall. No criminal charges to be had, despite brush fire,"accidental discharge" with a 3-mile range rifle within 10 yards of my husband and many close shots by "hunting", the list goes on. But during the meeting, reccomendation of the "mobile crisis team would hear Officers side and then speak with me". THIS SOUNDED GREAT TO ME, an outside LAW ENFORCEMENT INVESTIGATIVE TEAM. Silly me, it is a mobile mental health team, who were AWESOME, but not expected. While I believe in being proactive with mental health, I was looking for, um, maybe, um, someones head on a platter? Sorry, long story after all. My point is to share with you, with no family, and not much support yet, please call on these great folks in the future if needed. I dont know who was right or wrong in your case. But definately empathize with your stress of juggling your responsibilities and the welfare of your child. Sounds like you were rubbed the wrong way as I with everyone thinking you didnt have better things to do! Also your story rings familiar as I too had/have all the info needed, but feel I maybe didnt pursue well enough. I did and sounds as you did as well. Hope they are not needed in the future for you and your son, but a great resource to have on hand. Best wishes.
CinC, is there any way you can keep this post stickied at the top of your blog? That way it can continue to be seen, added to by citizens, and updated through November.
Easy way to tell if a judge is good or not. The easy way to tell and see how has the most signs up. In North Carolina it is legal to bribe a judge if you do it right. For example 10-15 lawyers get together and each of them throw 5 or 10 thousand in a pot. They give this money pot to a judge for his campaign money. Now both you and I know that nothing is for free. Well each group of lawyers will support a specific judge and all they do is continue cases until they get the judge that they supported and it's completely legal. If you remember the Observer did an article on a county near the beach that was doing this. The group of lawyers had a 95% win rate I believe.
FYI everybody--Moore, Mercer, and Owens are Republican.
"My philosophy is to provide a forum for a fair and impartial trial, rule quickly and with sound legal reasoning."
Hmmm Judge Moore likes to rule quickly
Judge Thomas Moore is like Rambo with a gavel! Love him!
Just remember, Fritz Mercer was the one who left Nancy Norelli in criminal court even after much behind the scenes grumbling about her incompetence and elitism. He only removed her once the Observer caught wind, and then once it died down he put her back in there.
I'd like to know what the process is for magistrates; we have a few arrogant, power-lust personalities seated as magistrates in Charlotte who need to be thoroughly looked at. How are they monitored and held to accountability? This is an anonymous protected group who seem to be immune to any type of public scrutiny. There are some disturbing stories whispered in certain social circles concerning a few.
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