New Cumberland judges: One pursued justice since childhood, other may be first Republican

Cumberland County’s two newest judges took office last week, and one of them appears to have made local political history by being the first Republican elected to the Cumberland County Superior Court bench.

Meanwhile, the other new jurist achieved a goal she had as a child — a goal that was partly inspired by her stepfather, a convicted murderer, telling her that the judge at his trial had treated him fairly.

The new jurists are Superior Court Judge Robby Hicks and District Court Judge Rosalyn Hood.

Both new judges were sworn in Jan. 1 to begin their work. Then they had ceremonial public swearing-in and robing ceremonies Jan. 5 and 6 at the Cumberland County Courthouse.

More:PHOTOS: Newly elected District Court judge Rosalyn Hood’s investiture ceremony

Both Hood and Hicks were prosecutors in the Cumberland County District Attorney's Office before winning their judicial elections this past November.

District Court judges adjudicate misdemeanor charges, preside over traffic court, adjust bail, handle divorce cases, oversee juvenile cases and child welfare matters, oversee some lawsuits, and other matters. The judges decide the verdicts.

More:Hicks elected to Superior Court, Hood to District Court in Cumberland County

Superior Court judges oversee trials for felony charges, higher-dollar lawsuits and other matters that are more severe than those that are handled in District Court. Trials here are decided by juries, unless the parties agree to let the judges rule. It’s also where people convicted of crimes in District Court can appeal for a trial before a jury.

District Court Judge Rosalyn Hood — inspired since childhood by the justice system

Rosalyn Hood, a Democrat, defeated Republican Jonathan Strange in the November election. Pat Timmons-Goodson, a retired associate justice of the N.C. Supreme Court, administered the oath of office Jan. 6.

One of Hood’s former middle school teachers, Jamie Lewis, spoke at Hood’s ceremony last Friday. Lewis said that when Hood was in the seventh grade in the early 1990s, two white teenagers were acquitted of stabbing two Black teens in a community that still had racial tension and mistrust. Lewis described the acquittal as unbelievable.

This was in Lenoir, a town in the western North Carolina mountains.

“I say all this to help show that when 12-year-old Rosalyn told me she wanted to be a lawyer, I was just unrealistic enough to tell her she could do it. And she was just gullible enough to believe me,” Lewis said.

But Hood didn’t just want to be a lawyer.

“I wanted to be a judge, and found out at some point you actually have to be lawyer first. So I was like, ‘Oh, so I better figure that lawyer part out first,’” Hood said in an interview Monday.

“That comes from: I’ve always fought for the underdog, I’ve always sought justice,” she said, and she always stood up for people who were being bullied.

More:Fayetteville Observer Voter Guide 2022: Meet the candidates for District Court judge

Hood also drew on her stepfather’s experience in the criminal justice system, she said.

“The man who raised me, my stepfather, he was actually a convicted felon — convicted murderer.”

Hood’s stepfather served 18 years of a 55-year sentence, she said, and she was about 4 when he met her mother after he was released.

“But one thing that he always said that stood out to me, was that the judge was fair,” Hood said. “He didn’t like the situation, you know. He’d done what he’d done. But he was treated fairly in the process. And he always talked about the judge, and the level of respect that the judge gave to him.”

When Hood became a lawyer in 2008, that same judge administered her oath of office, she said.

Hood graduated from the North Carolina Central University School of Law in 2007, she said, then had a year of military service. In 2008, she became a prosecutor for the Cumberland County District Attorney's Office.

Now she is a major in the U.S. Army Reserve, with active duty service in Iraq and Afghanistan. She has four children, ages 2 to 26.

Superior Court Judge Robby Hicks, the first Republican?

George “Robby” Hicks is the first Republican in living memory elected to Cumberland County Superior Court, and likely the first ever in Cumberland County history, said retired Superior Court Judge Coy Brewer, a Democrat who attended Hicks’ investiture ceremony Jan. 5.

N.C. Court of Appeals Judge John Tyson of Fayetteville, a Republican who also attended Hicks’ ceremony, agreed. “I think he would be the first,” he said.

But there is a caveat that records before modern times are not readily available to see who the judges were in the 1800s and early 20th century, and their political affiliations.

“You may have to go back to Reconstruction” — the period shortly after the Civil War — to find another Republican on the bench in Cumberland County, Tyson said.

North Carolina was dominated politically by Democrats for most of its history from the 1800s until 2010. Key exceptions were in the Reconstruction years right after the Civil War, when Republicans briefly gained power, and again for a few years in the 1890s when the state had three strong political parties.

More:PHOTOS: Newly elected Superior Court judge Robby Hicks’ Investiture ceremony

Hicks in interviews said he does not know if he is the first Republican Superior Court judge.

(Note that Clark Reaves was appointed as a Republican to a vacant seat on the county’s District Court bench in January 2014 by the governor. He later lost in his election to try to keep the seat. Judge Lou Olivera, who had left the Democratic Party in March 2014 while on the District Court bench, was a Republican when he was re-elected in 2016. Olivera was unopposed, and at the time the judicial races were nonpartisan. Olivera is now a Democrat again.)

At first glance, Hicks’ election victory over Democratic incumbent Superior Court Judge Mark Sternlicht may have appeared unlikely because overall, Cumberland County is Democratic-leaning.

But unlike District Court judges, Superior Court judges in Cumberland County run in election districts that include only parts of the county.

When Brewer was on the bench, he ran for election in the same district that Hicks is in now. “Actually, that judicial district is very evenly divided in registrations and voting history between Democrats and Republicans,” he said.

The map shows that Hicks’ election district curves around the northern edge, entire eastern side and entire southern portions of Cumberland County, including Hope Mills, with a piece that hooks and squiggles up from Hope Mills into the southeastern and middle parts of Fayetteville.

That district has a history of picking both strong Democratic candidates and strong Republican candidates for statewide offices such as governor, secretary of state and commissioner of agriculture, Brewer said.

More:Fayetteville Observer Voter Guide 2022: Meet the candidates for Superior Court judge

“There’s a narrow group of voters in that district who swing that race in all races between Democrats and Republicans,” Brewer said. “Within that narrow group, Judge Hicks did extremely well.”

Tyson sees a positive future for Hicks.

“He is so well respected. He’s got a history of fairness to everybody. He’s respected by the Bar. He’s respected by all the judges. He’s very experienced and he’s going to do a great job,” Tyson said.

Hicks grew up in Dunn and is a 1990 graduate of the Campbell University Law School.

He is married with two adult children. His wife is local attorney Margit Hicks.

After graduating law school in 1990, Hicks served as a clerk for Judge K. Edward Greene on the N.C. Court of Appeals. Greene, now retired, issued the oath of office to Hicks.

The law firm of Harris, Mitchell & Hancox hired Hicks as an associate for several years, and then he became a prosecutor with the Cumberland County District Attorney's Office in 1994.

Hicks said he will strive “to be consistent, fair and impartial in applying our laws as written to everyone, and to thereby preserve the integrity and independence of our judiciary.”

Senior North Carolina reporter Paul Woolverton can be reached at 910-261-4710 and pwoolverton@gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on The Fayetteville Observer: Cumberland may have elected its first Republican Superior Court Judge