One of the most heated races this election season has been the seven-county race for one of four District Court judge seats — a race between former prosecutor and sitting judge Monica Leslie and challenger Sybil Mann, an attorney well-known for social advocacy work, including domestic violence initiatives.

While many judicial races slide by unnoticed, often with no opposition, this one has been somewhat of an anomaly. Often a retiring judge will step down mid-way through a four-year term and the position filled with a political appointment. By the time the formal election for the seat rolls around, the appointed interim judge has garnered an incumbent advantage and is rarely faced with opposition, creating a system where voters in effect rubberstamp the judge appointed by the local bar association and the governor’s office.

In this race, however, Chief District Court Judge John Snow stepped down in March, just six months before Election Day. Mann and Leslie both vied for the appointment, along with Waynesville attorney Rusty McLean. Leslie won, but Mann has campaigned the entire six months trying to prevent Leslie from reaping the full benefits of incumbency.

Mann portrays Leslie as a status-quo judge with no real plan to improve a court system fraught with out-of-date methods and systems. Leslie portrays Mann as an outsider who threatens to disrupt the court system with rash overhauls.

Attorney contributions

One issue at the forefront of the race is the role of monetary contributions from attorneys. Mann has refused to accept lawyer contributions, while Leslie has received financial support from dozens of attorneys. Those contributions account for 70 percent of her total campaign money.

“To me, it’s the appearance of a conflict of interest and that justice might be for sale to the highest bidder. Attorneys giving campaign contributions to judges’ races is like a major league baseball team giving money to influence the selection of an umpire that’s going to call their games,” Mann said, borrowing an analogy from N.C. Court of Appeals Judge James Wynn. “Attorneys who support judicial campaigns aren’t doing it out of the public’s interest, they are doing it for their own personal interest.”

Leslie disagreed. She said the fact that she has received contributions from numerous attorneys is a testimony to her qualifications and skill as a judge.

“The people in the court system who know the two of us best, who work with us every day, know our personalities, know our knowledge of the law, how we perform in the courtroom.... I am very, very proud the people within that court system are supporting me,” Leslie said. “The reason any contributor donates to my campaign is because they think I am the best candidate, which for a judge means I am the most fair and have the most experience. If I in any way felt someone was giving me money for an improper purpose, I would never accept it.”

Leslie added that she is not independently wealthy and could not afford to self-finance the kind of campaign Mann is running. Mann said she was financing her campaign through savings, loans and contributions from 300 members of the public.

Leslie also points out that it was the legal community that supported her appointment over Mann back in March when both tried to get the local bar association’s support. An anonymous vote was held among attorneys in the seven western counties and Leslie garnered the support of 54 percent of the ballots and subsequently was appointed by Gov. Mike Easley. Since the vote was anonymous, it removed any possibility of the kind of perceived conflict of interest that Mann is trying to connect to the monetary contributions.

“Their support today in contributions is an extension of the support and vote of confidence I got from them in March when I was seeking appointment to this position,” Leslie said.

Leslie said her support is not only coming from attorneys. She says the law enforcement community and court personnel support her over Mann as well.

She is publicly endorsed by a slew of regional sheriffs and clerk of courts: Cherokee County Sheriff Keith Levin, Clay County Sheriff Tony Woody, Swain County Sheriff Ben Ogle, former Macon County Sheriff Homer Holbrook, Cherokee Clerk of Court Gerry Breedlove, Clay Clerk of Court Harold McClure, Graham Clerk of Court Johnny Brooms, Swain Clerk of Court Helen Stiles, and Macon Clerk of Court Anna Jane Carson.

Leslie is also endorsed by the North Carolina Association of Women Attorneys.

Status quo versus change

Some of Mann’s opponents have questioned her role as a long-time advocate for social issues and domestic violence issues and fear Mann will use the judge’s bench to advance her advocacy work rather than make impartial rulings according to the written letter of the law.

Mann, who has written $4 million worth of grants for communities in the seven western counties, said she is proud of her community work. She said the only agenda she has is to make the court system more effective, especially for families, by using initiatives already in place elsewhere in the state.

“I’m proud to be running with an agenda for the people because it’s their court,” Mann said. “The judges role is more than sitting on the bench. The judicial code of ethics encourages judges to address court and community problems so that the court system can be more effective.”

Mann cited an initiative introduced by a judge in Kentucky to address the problem of parents who repeatedly fail to get their children to school, resulting in numerous absences. The parent is held liable with the charge of truancy. But instead of waiting for the case to come up on the court docket, the judge took the courtroom into the school, meeting with the parent and school staff.

“By the time the case reaches the court system, the child may have missed upwards of 30 days of school. It was too late to make a difference in the child’s life,” Mann said. “I want to be that kind of judge.”

Mann said society will suffer if the status quo in the court system is allowed to continue indefinitely.

“For kids who are abused and neglected, the longer they are involved in court without family to call their own, the more emotional problems they will have and the more likely it is they are going to end up as troubled young people and troubled adults,” Mann said.

“If we don’t make our juvenile court system work better, they are much more likely to go on to adult court.”

Under the current system, criminals go unpunished because victims get tired of coming back to court over and over waiting to have their case heard. So they end up dropping the charges, Mann said. She cited one business owner who took off work three times to come to court to try to collect on a $1,500 bad check, but dropped the case because he said he couldn’t afford to keep leaving work to come to court in hopes of having his case heard.

“Someone who’s had their house broken into, making them come back to court five or six times, that’s not fair,” Mann said.

Mann said Leslie is satisfied with the status quo in the court system.

“My opponent has no issue with how the judicial system operates. She has said the system works just fine,” Mann said.

Leslie disagreed. She said she does have plans to improve the court system, and has a better grasp on what types of changes are needed given her experience as judge.

“I am working to improve the way our court works everyday from the bench. I am seeing first-hand in my role as District Court judge how our courts function,” Leslie said. “Overall, I think they work very well. But the judges are in constant discussions of how we can do things better. This is not a static system. Things are constantly changing and improving. We in the system are proud of it and want to make it the best we can for the people who use it.”

Leslie said she too has issues with the number of continuances allowed for cases and agrees it deters victims who must come back to court over and over again just to find the case has been continued yet again, and finally give up.

Leslie said she plans to take a paced, thoughtful approach to making improvements in the court system. Mann’s crusade to revamp the court system would be ineffective because she will alienate the court personnel, attorneys and other judges, Leslie said.

“You can’t rush into a system and think you can reform every part of it overnight. You have to be respected by the people in the system number one, and understand how the system works in order to facilitate positive changes,” Leslie said. “I want to find effective ways to make changes that work. You first have to garner the support of the people working in the system.”

The end result is that Mann would be ineffective in accomplishing any of her stated goals, according to Leslie.

“I am the candidate with actual experience on the bench. I am the candidate who has spent thousands of hours in District Court,” said Leslie, citing her experience as an assistant district attorney and six months as a judge. “My experience far outweighs that of my opponent.”

Mann disagreed over who had the most experience. Mann said Leslie has spent her entire career as a criminal prosecutor. Mann has worked in criminal court, domestic court, civil court and juvenile court on both sides of the aisle. Mann said she has the most experience in the fastest growing segment of the court system, domestic family cases like divorce and child custody.

Technology in courts

The seemingly simple task of scheduling court cases is being done in an antiquated and cumbersome fashion, and judges aren’t taking advantage of Internet technology that could vastly improve the system, Mann said.

The scheduling process, known as “calendar call,” spans most of the morning and involves a good deal of milling about by attorneys and lots of thumb twiddling by those with pending cases who are waiting for their name to be called.

The process involves wading through a long list of outstanding cases on the court docket. The majority of cases are continued, while others have reached a plea bargain, been resolved through mediation or the charges dismissed. Out of 100 cases on the docket, a handful might be scheduled for a hearing later that day or week.

“Most people would be amazed to find out if they have a family case or a civil case in our judicial district, their attorney will go to court and sit for one to two hours billing them between $150 and $300 an hour just to find out their case may be heard later in the week,” Mann said. “I met a man yesterday who got a $300 bill when his case was continued. ‘I can’t afford this’ the man told me. And let’s be frank, once they get done with calendar call, everyone stands around and talks for half an hour.”

Mann said she would “immediately” begin implementing electronic court scheduling, patterned after the new system already being employed locally by Judge Stephen Bryant.

“Judge Bryant is so proud of that thing and he wants other people to use it,” Mann said.

Leslie said she also supports electronic scheduling.

“I intended to use the electronic calendar call,” Leslie said.

Leslie said that she does not “rush headlong” into changes that could clash with what other judges are doing.

“If you have one judge that is trying to do something completely different from the other four, it would be very confusing. You have to work together as a group,” Leslie said.

On the move

Mann has questioned Leslie’s move to postpone domestic court in Hayesville on Oct. 12 from the regular 9:30 a.m. starting time until 2 p.m. Leslie that day stopped by the Jackson County Democratic headquarters around 11 o’clock and spoke at a Macon County Republican Women’s luncheon at noon.

Mann said she knew of one woman who had taken off work to come to court in Hayesville that morning, and ultimately had to miss a full day of work in order to come back at 2 p.m.

“In these tough economic times, we need to be respectful that we are dealing with working people,” Mann said.

Leslie said the schedule change had been approved a week and a half prior. Leslie said she asked the Chief District Court Judge Danny Davis, who is supporting Leslie’s candidacy, for a morning off to tend to personal errands, and that was the morning he told her to take. The clerk of court was supposed to notify those scheduled to appear in court that day.

“The chief District Court judge gave me personal time off. I do not campaign on court time,” Leslie said. Leslie said she did stop by the Jackson County Democratic headquarters to drop off signs and go to the Macon County campaign luncheon, but those stops were on the way to Hayesville.

Mann raised issues over Leslie’s record as a prosecutor. During the last three years that Leslie was in charge of the Jackson County district attorney’s office, the county had the highest rate of DWI dismissals of the 14 western counties — 41 percent of DWIs were dismissed compared to 36 percent for the second-highest county, according to state court statistics.

Leslie said the statistics are skewed.

“It’s very misleading. I was a very tough DWI prosecutor,” Leslie said. The statistics for DWI dismissals include a host of other charges that aren’t related to the actual drunk driver. Open container violations, aiding and abetting charges that apply to the owner of a vehicle who lets an intoxicated person drive their vehicle, and unserved warrants on people.

District Attorney Mike Bonfoey, a Leslie supporter, discovered this skewed method of calculating DWI dismissals when looking into Mann’s claim.

Leslie said she has a reputation as a tough prosecutor.

“In the 2002-2003 fiscal year, the felony conviction rate in the Jackson County court was 70 percent. The statewide average was 53 percent,” Leslie said.

Mann’s campaign has been on the offensive in recent weeks, challenging Leslie’s record and activities, forcing Leslie to respond and making it difficult for her to keep her pledge to run a positive campaign.

“I have served as District Court judge for the last six months with honesty, integrity, common sense and sound judgment, and hope to continue to do so. My campaign will remain positive in spite of my opponent’s mudslinging,” Leslie said.