THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, June 2, 1995 TAG: 9506020543
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY MASON PETERS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NAGS HEAD LENGTH: Medium: 95 lines
Eighteen months after his appointment to the District Court bench, Edgar Lem Barnes will be sworn in this month as a judge in North Carolina's 1st Judicial District.
The 36-year-old Dare County attorney was notified Wednesday that the U.S. Justice Department civil rights division on Tuesday had withdrawn a legal objection that had prevented Barnes from filling a judgeship created in 1993 by the General Assembly.
Gov. James B. Hunt Jr. appointed Barnes to the bench on Nov. 22, 1993, after the legislators established a fourth judge on the District Court bench for the Albemarle.
``I'm as tickled as I can be,'' Barnes said Thursday at his Nags Head office, ``I've prayed that this would happen. A lot of my friends told me it never would. But now I plan to be sworn in either on the 16th or 23rd of this month.''
Several court officials were pleased, too.
``I'm delighted that Judge Barnes will soon join us,'' said Resident Senior District Court Judge Grafton G. Beaman of Elizabeth City. ``He'll make a fine judge and we need him. There are only three district judges now sitting in the 1st Judicial District and there's a lot of pressure on our courts.''
In Raleigh, state Sen. Marc Basnight, D-Dare, said ``Edgar Barnes' honesty and integrity may now be shared by all of us.''
Basnight is the president pro tem of the state Senate, and he was Barnes' original sponsor for the district judgeship. Barnes is a nephew of Henson P. Barnes, a Goldsboro attorney who preceded Basnight as the president pro tem of the state Senate.
James C. Drennan, director of the Administrative Office of the Courts in Raleigh who worked for more than a year to get the U.S. Justice Department to OK the creation of a fourth District Court judgeship in the 1st Judicial District, said he was ``very pleased.''
``We've spent a lot of time and effort overcoming the Justice Department's objections,'' said Drennan.
Civil rights lawyers at the U.S. Justice Department demanded that creation of a fourth local District Court judge be ``precleared'' by the Justice Department before any new judge could be sworn in. The demand was based on a provision of Section Five of the Civil Rights Act that requires Justice Department approval of a new elective judgeship when at least 25-percent of voters in a judicial district are African American or other minorities.
``The U.S. Justice Department is concerned that black candidates may be submerged in single-shot elections for district judges,'' said Drennan. If Barnes wants to keep his seat, he will have to run in the next regular judicial elections.
Drennan said the Administrative Office of the Courts analyzed previous 1st Judicial District voting in which Judge James Carlton Cole, of Hertford, and his wife, former District Judge Janice McKenzie Cole, were both elected to the District court bench by heavy majorities.
Judge Cole succeeded his wife on the District Court bench after she was named by President Clinton as United States Attorney for the Eastern District of North Carolina.
``We sent a detailed study of the Cole elections along with other material to the civil rights division in Washington and we were pleased when the Justice Department withdrew the objection this week,'' said Drennan. He said the local elections clearly showed that black candidates had an equal opportunity to be elected to the District Court bench.
Withdrawal of the preclearance objection was announced by David L. Patrick, assistant U.S. Attorney General in the civil rights division of the Justice Department, in a letter to Drennan.
``We have carefully considered the election of Judge Cole in 1994, as well as the election of Ms. Cole in 1990,'' Patrick said, ``We conclude that establishment of the fourth District 1 judgeship satisfies the Section Five preclearance standards (and) the objection is hereby withdrawn.''
Barnes said Thursday that hehoped to be sworn in this month by Superior Court Judge Jerry Tillett, another Dare County member of the 1st District judiciary.
Tillett is a former legal aide to Basnight in the Senate president pro-tem's office. The addition of Barnes to the District Court bench will increase the number of Basnight's Dare County friends who have reached high office in Gov. Hunt's administration.
``Bobby'' Owens, a Nags Head restaurateur who is also chairman of the Dare County Commissioners, is Hunt's eastern representative with offices in New Bern. His son, R.V. Owens III, was appointed by Hunt to be the northeastern member of the Board of Transportation, a prestigious highway-building job.
Barnes, a graduate of North Carolina Central School of Law in Durham and the University of North Carolina at Wilmington, lives in Manteo with his wife, Michele Nance Barnes, and their child, Graham Russ Barnes. He is a trustee of the Manteo Baptist Church and an officer of the Masonic Lodge and Lion's International. ILLUSTRATION: Photo
Edgar L. Barnes
KEYWORDS: APPOINTMENT JUDGESHIP by CNB