Supreme Court candidate stops
By Steve Herring
Published in News on October 30, 2014 1:46 PM
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Eric Levinson
North Carolinians will elect four out of the seven members of the state Supreme Court at the same time on Tuesday.
Superior Court Judge Eric L. Levinson, 47, who is one of eight hopefuls seeking a seat on the high court, says his breadth of experience from the district attorney's office all the way to the state Court of Appeals is what is needed on the new court.
His election would be unique as well -- no judge in the history of the state has ever joined the Supreme Court after having served at all other levels of the judiciary, he said.
Candidates file for a specific seat. Levinson is running against incumbent Robin Hudson. Judicial races are nonpartisan.
"What I tell folks is that I have the blessing of having served at all levels of the judiciary," Levinson said during a campaign stop in Goldsboro.
"The second thing that I share, as a Superior Court judge, I preside over the state's most serious criminal cases and the most complex civil cases. That experience is lacking at the Supreme Court of North Carolina."
A Republican, Levinson said he enjoys broad-based support from Republicans and Democrats alike
That is the case, he said, because his record demonstrates that he takes very seriously a judge's oath to limit himself to the fundamental purposes of why he is in the courtroom -- to adjudicate disputes, to sustain the people's rights, to punish the guilty and to vindicate the innocent.
"It is our job to administer the law evenly and to understand that judicial restraint is an important part of who I am as judge," he said.
For people, regardless of party affiliation, who want to seek out public policy objectives, there is the General Assembly and Congress, he said.
However, there will be times where the court has to step in.
"It is our obligation to defer wherever we can, within the limits of the Constitution, to what is adopted by the General Assembly," he said.
Levinson said during campaigning he has learned that voters are hungrier than ever for information about judicial candidates.
"I don't believe this is unique to North Carolina," he said. "There is a heightened interest in who is holding that public responsibility -- who the judges are.
"I think people recognize more and more that while we give, understandably, more time and interest to those folks going into the General Assembly, it is really equally important, if not of greater importance, to think about the judges who are going into courtroom."
Independence of the court is the cornerstone of the judiciary, he said.
Courts have to remain above the political divide and above the political debate they see every day, Levinson said.
The ultimate responsibility of the state Supreme Court is to interpret and apply the state constitution, he said.
A native of Gaston County, Levinson received his law degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Between 1992 and 1996, he served as a criminal prosecutor in Cabarrus and Rowan counties. Between 1996 and 2002, he served as a family and district court judge in Charlotte and, in late 2002, was elected statewide as an associate judge on the North Carolina Court of Appeals.
Five years into an eight-year term, he resigned and went to Iraq with the Department of Justice during the Bush years.
"I was the team leader for a rule-of-law team in Iraq," he said. "Our function was to stand up major crimes courts in Iraq. Then I went from Iraq to Afghanistan. Our function in Afghanistan was to establish new civil courts.
"When I came back to the U.S. in early 2009, a bipartisan group of Democrats and Republicans supported my appointment to Superior Court."