- The 2024 Judicial Candidates Forum is made possible by a partnership between PBS North Carolina and the North Carolina Bar Association.

[gentle authoritative music] Joining me now on the set are the nominees for North Carolina's Court of Appeals Seat 14, Democratic candidate Ed Eldred and Republican candidate Valerie Zachary.

Hello to you both, thanks for being on the set.

- Hello, thanks for having me.

- For a very intimate conversation.

- Glad to be here.

- Oh, I'm glad to have you here too.

And it's great for you to both agree to appear together on behalf of the voters of North Carolina.

So this is an interview that has opening and closing statements, so not quite a debate, so voters can get to know you.

We flipped a coin backstage that led us to, Mr. Eldred, you saying you wanted the, you know, opening comments because you won that coin flip.

So we'll give it to you up to two minutes.

Tell us who you are and why you're running.

- Sure, thanks for having me.

And to you, personally, I know you've been doing these for some time now.

You do a great job and very conversationalist, as you say.

So I grew up here, I was raised here, I went to North Carolina Public Schools.

I went to UNC for my undergraduate degree in history and English.

And then I went to UNC for law school, where I graduated with honors.

After that, I clerked for two judges at the Court of Appeals.

I clerked for Linda Stephens for two years, and then for Chief Judge John Martin for about six months, before moving to a large firm in Raleigh where I worked in the Appellate Practice Group with former Judge K. Eddie Green.

So literally, I feel I've learned from the best judges that we've had on our bench.

After that, I opened up my own practice in Carrboro, where I'm from, where I've raised my daughter with my wife.

And I focused on two main practice groups, practice areas, I represent parents in DSS court.

These are mothers, fathers fighting for their children, fighting to keep their families together.

And I do appeals, I've represented about 300 people in the Court of Appeals.

On the criminal side, everything from a simple possession charge to a first-degree murder.

On the civil side, everything from a homeowner's association dispute, to domestic violence cases, to a termination of parental rights, which we call the civil death penalty.

So that's what I've been doing for 15 years now.

- Thank you, Mr. Eldred.

Valerie Zachary, tell us about yourself.

Two-minute opening statement.

- Well, first of all, I want to thank UNC-TV and the North Carolina Bar Association for collaborating and bringing this judicial forum to the voters.

I think we can all agree that it's important for the voters to have as much information as possible.

I'm Valerie Zachary, from the North Carolina Court of Appeals, where I've been honored to serve for over nine years now.

I'm from Yadkin County, which is in the western part of the state on the way to Boone.

And my father is from Yadkin County, and my mother's from Ann Arbor, Michigan.

And they met and married in Michigan, and he brought her back Yadkin County, and they had five children.

I'm the oldest of the five.

But then when I was seven, he left, so my mother ended up raising the five of us by herself.

I lived and grew up in Yadkin County, and then went to half a junior high and high school in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

I received a scholarship to Michigan State University, where I graduated with honors in the multidisciplinary program with concentrations in French, economics, and political science.

I then went to Harvard Law School, where I graduated cum laude and served as a research assistant and critiqued moot court briefs while I was there.

I knew I did not wanna go to Wall Street, so I made a rule that I wasn't interviewing with any law firms that had a shower, their own shower, 'cause I wasn't moving in.

So I took a job on the litigation team with Kennedy Covington Lobdell & Hickman, which is a Charlotte firm, and is now K&L Gates.

I loved it there and it was great.

But then I married my husband and ended up right back in Yadkin County again, where we practiced together for 26 years.

I was appointed to the Court in 2015.

I ran in 2016 and won my race, won an eight-year term.

And it's been my honor to serve on the Court since then.

- All right, well, let's go to the first question, and thank you for your opening statements, but Mr. Eldred, what do you think, regardless of who sits in the Court of Appeals in one of those chairs, one of those seats, what are the most important qualifications any judge should have for that role, independent of political party?

- Sure, I got asked this question just yesterday.

I ran into somebody who asked me the same thing, and I said, "Well, when I go into a courtroom, what I want to know is that the judge is listening to me.

The judge is hearing my arguments, the judge is considering my arguments.

The judge is taking my arguments seriously, trying to come to a well-reasoned and a balanced, fair decision."

That's number one, it's the opportunity to be heard.

That's, I think, an overlooked quality that judges need to have.

- What about your own personal qualities that you see in yourself makes you, you know, how are they reflected in your background if you were to be elected?

- Well, representing parents in DSS court really is most personally and professionally gratifying thing that I do.

I like to help people.

I like to stand up and fight what I think is not the most fair system around, and the people that I'm helping need a lot of help.

It's very rewarding to have them come back to me at the end of a case and give me a hug and say, "Thank you, Mr. Eldred, I really appreciate it."

And I say, "Well, I didn't do anything.

You did all the work.

I'm just holding your hand through it."

So, to me, that's what being a lawyer is about.

- Ms. Zachary, I ask you the same question.

You sat in one of those seats.

What are some important qualifications as a person and a professional, independent of political party?

- Well, I think the most important quality is that you need to be, any type of judge, is integrity, ability to do the work, and a strong work ethic, especially if you're gonna be on the Court of Appeals, because we have a tremendous workload.

And so, you know, you may be the smartest person around and you may, you know, be a tremendous person, but if you won't do the work, there are people out there waiting for their answers.

- What about your background, in your opinion, manifests into those kind of qualities that make a quality judge?

You've worked in the big city, you've also worked in rural North Carolina practicing law.

- Well, I mean, and even considering my personal background, you know, I learned that, my mother always says, you know, as the oldest of five, I was "insistent upon fairness."

[chuckles] And then, you know, I learned the value of hard work.

You know, you weren't gonna achieve anything without working hard, and so I've always been a very hard worker.

And then, on top of that, I have all these years of experience that I bring to the table at the Court, both in general practice, and then over nine years on the Court itself.

- I've got time for one more question before we go to the closing statement as part of this segment, but, Mr. Eldred, what do you think of judicial independence, and what do you think voters are assuming when they are now voting for a judge, but it's on a partisan basis?

- Yes, that's a complicated question and I don't think there's a good answer.

It's unfortunate that we are labeling ourselves Democrat and Republican, particularly in today's environment, because there's a lot of assumptions that people make just because I'm a Democrat and someone's a Republican.

I just think maybe that's not the best way to do it.

Electing judges maybe is okay, but when we put the label after our names, that creates all kinds of problems.

- Yeah, polls well, they say having partisan races for judicial, so it's not an issue right now, but what are your thoughts on that?

When you're in Raleigh, do you feel the climate of the politics around the Court of Appeals, Supreme Court?

Or is it something that judges can block out and do the job the best they know how?

- You know, when I joined the Court of Appeals in 2015, Chief Judge Linda McGee told me, "We leave our politics at the door," and we did, we did, and it was a very collegial court.

And I think right now the Court of Appeals is operating well, our disposition rates are high and things seem to be going well.

As for elections, I'm not sure, I mean, it sounds great to say we need to get politics out of the judiciary, but I'm not sure that there's any way to do it that doesn't involve politics.

Because if you say, "Well, we wanna have judges appointed," okay, if the governor appoints the judges, that's political.

If the legislature appoints the judges, that's political.

If you have an independent commission, who appoints the independent commissioners?

It all ends up, you know, being political somehow, and it's hard for me to argue against giving the voters more information.

Party affiliation, I agree with my opponent, is not the best way to tell who's gonna be a good judge.

But how do we say, "We don't want you to have this information"?

- You've answered these questions so in depth, I must say, we had agreed to do a two-minute closing statement for each, you're down to about 90 seconds now.

But, as such, we'll take the time we have with you.

Mr. Eldred, you have the first closing statement to tell the voters why they deserve your vote in November.

- Sure, what the Court of Appeals does mostly are criminal appeals and parental rights appeals, and mostly in the area of indigent defense, which is exactly what I've done literally my entire career, and the Court could use that perspective when it's deciding these cases.

The Court is a very special place, but it's not all theoretical, these cases affect actual people.

And I think it's important to have someone who's been there, who's stood next to them when they're crying while they're trying to get their kids back, while they're angry.

Someone who calls you from the prison and says, "How come they didn't address this argument?

What about this, what about that?"

I think that perspective is something the Court is lacking and something that it needs, that's why I think I'm a great candidate for the job.

- Well, Mr. Eldred, thank you for your time here.

On this interview, in this segment, voters can hear directly from you.

Ms. Zachary, you get the last word on this, about 90 seconds or so.

Tell us why folks should vote for you.

- Well, I bring a different perspective to the Court.

I've had 26 years in general practice.

Chief Judge Linda McGee used to call it the General Practice Court of Appeals, and it is, we do everything that you see in a general practice.

And I bring that perspective to the Court, that experience in those type of cases.

And I've been down in the trenches where the rubber meets the road.

I've worked with real people.

You know, I haven't spent my career working with big corporations.

You know, I know what real people need and want, and I feel like I'm there to represent the average person.

You know, and on top of that, I offer experienced leadership to the Court.

I'm one of the longest serving current members of our appellate bench.

I'm vice president of the North Carolina Bar Association.

I'm serving my fourth term on the North Carolina Sentencing Commission.

I'm a member of the Family Courts Advisory Commission.

And I've authored about 600 opinions, and they're available for your review at nccourts.org.

And in each of those opinions, I have tried to follow the mission of the Court of Appeals, which is to apply the law, not to make the law, not to make policy, to apply the law as it is written, thank you.

- We've been discussing the North Carolina Court of Appeals Seat Number 14, Valerie Zachary, the Republican, running against Ed Eldred, the Democrat, for the same seat.

Thank you both for being on this very special segment for us brought to you by PBS NC and the North Carolina Bar Association.

I really appreciate it.

The 2024 Judicial Candidates Forum is made possible by a partnership between PBS North Carolina and the North Carolina Bar Association.

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