Chief Buncombe District Court judge Hill, county's 2nd Black judge, won't run in 2024

ASHEVILLE — Following Chief District Court Judge J. Calvin Hill’s announcement on Nov. 2 that he will not be seeking reelection, the Citizen Times sat down with the head of Buncombe County’s district court to discuss the decision and his time on the bench.

Hill said he made the decision “probably more than a year ago” to step down at the end of his term in December of 2024, based on a feeling some people call conscience, others instinct or intuition, that he had “put enough time into this.”

“Mainly, I announced it because I knew there would be a lot of people who wanted to run for that seat, so I wanted to give them time to get their campaign together,” Hill told the Citizen Times Nov. 7. “I made it clear with my colleagues and with other lawyers, I’m retiring from being a judge, but I’m probably still going to be involved in the law in some way.”

In a letter addressed to “the citizens of Buncombe County, my friends and colleagues,” Hill expressed gratitude for the support he’s received over the past several years, saying “being your Chief District Court Judge has been a highlight of my career as a lawyer.”

Hill has served as chief district court judge since he was appointed in 2010 by former N.C. Chief Justice Sarah Parker and has been reappointed by three subsequent chief justices of the N.C. Supreme Court. In all his years in that seat, no one has run against him. This has become a source of pride for Hill, who said, “to me, it means that they had some confidence in what I was doing.”

Before he joined the office in 1995, Buncombe County had not had a Black public defender in over 20 years since former Judge Robert Harold, who was the first Black public defender in the county, according to Hill.

He said Asheville attorney Gene Ellison called one of Hill's law professors, Thomas Ringer, at North Carolina Central University, and asked if anyone would be open for the job.

“(Ellison) said ‘Look, we need to have a Black public defender. We have all of these Black people coming through here in the criminal justice system and there’s no Black lawyers,” Hill said.

Hill, who grew up in Cross Hill, South Carolina, took the job to move closer to his daughter and to learn how to litigate murder cases, “being a judge was not on my radar,” he said. When he was appointed as a judge by Gov. Mike Easley in 2007, Hill became the second Black judge in Buncombe County after Harold, and later became the first Black judge to serve as chief in Buncombe county.

In his long tenure as Chief District Judge, Hill said he has seen his fair share of respect but also criticism, including in 2019 when anti-domestic violence advocates criticized Hill's alteration of domestic violence court process, which they said made it more difficult for victims; when District Attorney Todd Williams disagreed with his 2021 dismissal of an Asheville Police Department officer’s assault charge; and earlier this year when First Amendment rights and press advocates protested his convictions of two Asheville Blade reporters on trespassing charges.

More: Judge alters temporary domestic violence protective order hearings after criticism

More: Asheville Blade reporters convicted of trespassing have date set for new trial

The Citizen Times sat down with Hill at the Buncombe County Courthouse to discuss what he’s learned in the role, what he sees as challenges facing Buncombe County and what’s next for him.

Q&A with Chief District Judge Hill

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Citizen Times: What do you see as the biggest challenge facing district court judges in Buncombe County?

Calvin Hill: Probably the same thing as in most North Carolina counties, which is volume. We do a lot more volume than the superior courts because we can handle cases more quickly. Our cases, the large majority of them we handle in a day.

ACT: Will the new North Carolina House Bill 813 – which requires judges to set bonds for people on pretrial release – affect judges and the workload they face?

CH: It has added to the volume of people we have to deal with every day and gives us a little bit more stuff we have to do on first appearances for these people because in addition to seeing if they want a lawyer, we also have to set a bond. I’ll just be frank with you; I don’t know why the legislature decided to do that. The magistrates did a good job. But the legislature by way of laws, statutes, regulations, they tell us what we need to do.

More: New pretrial release law causes concern over Asheville jail overcrowding, burdened courts

ACT: As a judge, how do you keep yourself impartial and regulate your own opinions?

CH: I worked as a defense attorney for 12 years, so I saw criminal defendants get treatment that I thought was not fair. And because of the group of people that I represented were indigent, I felt like they were treated differently than people who could afford their own lawyers. … I've always felt that regardless of a person's socio-economic status, they are deserving of some basic level of respect. And that's something that I took to the bench with me from the very beginning.

ACT: Are there any cases you look back on that stick out as pivotal that you were a part of?

CH: As a defense attorney I handled some pretty big cases and probably one of the biggest murder cases that ever came through Buncombe County, which was the case of Richard Allen Jackson. (Jackson was convicted in 1995 of the rape and murder of 22-year-old Candler woman Karen Styles in Pisgah National Forest, but the conviction was overturned when the N.C. Supreme Court ruled jurors should not have heard his confession because he had invoked his right to counsel. Jackson later pleaded guilty to second-degree murder). It ended up going to the U.S. Supreme Court. Some very consequential law came out of that case, just basically saying that if a defendant mentions a lawyer while he is being interrogated, you have to stop and give him a lawyer.

More: Death penalty conviction upheld in murder, rape of Karen Styles in Pisgah National Forest

ACT: Do you have any ideas for what’s next?

CH: I’ve still got a year to go, and I’ve got every confidence that between now and December 2024, whatever it is I’m supposed to do, it’ll come and that’s what I’ll do.

Ryley Ober is the Public Safety Reporter for Asheville Citizen Times, part of the USA Today Network. Email her at rober@gannett.com and follow her on Twitter @ryleyober

This article originally appeared on Asheville Citizen Times: Buncombe Chief District Judge Calvin Hill not seeking reelection