Yesterday, Governor McCrory announced the appointment of Bob N. Hunter to the seat being vacated by Jimmy Ervin’s recent election to the North Carolina Supreme Court.  As you may recall, both Hunter and Ervin were N.C. Court of Appeals judges vying for the same Supreme Court seat in the November 2014 elections.  Midway through the campaign, McCrory elevated Justice Mark Martin to the Chief Justice seat and appointed Judge Hunter to Justice Martin’s old seat–a seat Justice Hunter will have retained for four months before Judge Ervin is sworn in in January 2015.  However, Judge Ervin’s election to the Supreme Court created a vacancy on the Court of Appeals, which Gov. McCrory used to send Justice Hunter back to the Court of Appeals.   One other interesting tidbit is that Bob C. Hunter is retiring from the Court of Appeals at the end of the year.  Bob N. Hunter’s reappointment means the tradition that began in 1998 of having at least one Judge Bob Hunter on the Court of Appeals remains unbroken.

In other judicial news, last week former N.C. Court of Appeals Judge Loretta Biggs was confirmed to the MDNC district court seat created by Judge James Beaty’s move to senior status.

Congratulations to both Justice Hunter and Judge Biggs, and H/T to Raleigh SML partner Mark Finkelstein for passing on this information.

–Beth Scherer