THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, July 9, 1994 TAG: 9407090220
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY MASON PETERS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: HERTFORD LENGTH: Medium: 76 lines
More than 200 men and women gathered under towering oaks on the Perquimans County Courthouse lawn in an emotional welcome Friday for the newest judge to take an oath in the 169-year-old building.
James Carlton Cole, a 45-year-old attorney, was sworn in as a district judge before the kind of an audience that usually turns out only for a governor or a visiting Democratic president.
From Raleigh came state Supreme Court and Appeals Court judges, legislators, and administration officials. Nearly every sheriff and police officer in eastern North Carolina showed up. Republicans and Democrats perspired happily together while they watched ``J.C.'' Cole became a judge.
The well-wishers spilled out of the courthouse yard into Hertford's blocked-off main street.
``Judge Cole has always walked among men as a leader,'' said state Sen. Marc Basnight, D-Dare, principal speaker at the ceremony.
``Now J.C. will bring new hope to tomorrow's generation of young people,'' continued Basnight, the powerful president pro tem of the state Senate and a longtime friend of Cole.
``Few people know how much good Judge Cole has brought to this world,'' Basnight said. ``His philosophy is simple: `I am you.'
``This has been J.C.'s lifelong message - that we must treat each other alike. That is what brings us here today.''
When Basnight finished, a young girl wriggled through the crowd and asked him if she could have a copy of Basnight's remarks extolling Cole.
``I don't have a copy,'' Basnight said. ``I guess those words were written in my heart - that's where they came from.''
With Basnight was state Sen. Frank W. Ballance Jr., D-Warrenton, who adjourned a budget meeting in the embattled General Assembly so that legislative leaders could come to the courthouse, where for 169 years the wooden beams have creaked and groaned under the pageantry honoring the majesty of law.
Ballance is considered one of the most powerful black political leaders in the state.
Superior Court Judge Richard Parker of Manteo administered the oath after Cole was introduced by his wife, Janice McKenzie Cole, now chief U.S. prosecutor for the Eastern District of North Carolina.
It was Janice Cole's appointment by President Clinton to the federal prosecutor's position that created the District Court vacancy filled with Cole's swearing-in Friday.
Gov. James B. Hunt Jr. appointed Cole to serve out his wife's District Court term, and it was this office that Cole assumed.
Cole also ran for and won the May Democratic primary election for district judge, and must now face James A. Beales Jr., an Elizabeth City Republican candidate, in November.
If Cole wins that election, he will take another oath as a regular district judge in December.
A measure of the solidarity behind Cole was evident in remarks by William T. ``Tim'' Davis, the Elizabeth City lawyer defeated by Cole in the Democratic primary.
``I have to thank J.C. for allowing me to come here and express my support and friendship,'' Davis said.
Until he decided to run for the bench, Cole practiced law in Perquimans County and was chairman of the 1st Congressional District Democratic Party. The district, reapportioned by the General Assembly in 1992, sent Rep. Eva M. Clayton, D-Warren, to Washington as the first black and the first female in this century to sit in the U.S. House of Representatives from North Carolina.
Clayton also attended the swearing-in ceremony. ILLUSTRATION: DREW WILSON/Staff
ABOVE: James Carlton Cole, center, takes the oath of office as a
district judge. Cole's daughters, right, held the Bible. BELOW: More
than 200 people attended the swearing-in ceremony, which took place
outside the Perquimans County Courthouse.
by CNB