Top NC Court of Appeals judge removed from leadership role, without explanation

The chief judge on the North Carolina Court of Appeals has been ousted in what she suggested was a political power play — a move that comes a little more than a year after leaders in her party sought to remove her from the court.

Judge Donna Stroud — a Republican who has served on the court since 2006 and has been the chief judge since 2021 — was quietly removed from the most senior position on the appeals court, effective Monday. She remains in her seat on the bench, but not as chief judge.

She told WRAL News that she was removed from the leadership position by Supreme Court Chief Justice Paul Newby, a fellow Republican, who as chief justice has the authority to determine who is chief judge of the appellate court. Historically, the chief judge position has gone to the jurist with the most seniority. Stroud is still the most senior judge.

“Chief Justice Newby informed me on Dec. 19 that we would have a new chief judge, effective Jan. 1,” Stroud said. “He had stated, as a reason for that, that some courts — federal courts for example, and some state courts — do rotate chief judges since there’s an administrative burden on the chief judge.”

A spokesperson for Newby and the courts system didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday.

The move had not been publicly announced by the court system as recently as Tuesday. But the Court of Appeals website on Tuesday listed Republican Chris Dillon as the chief judge.

Stroud said in an interview Tuesday it’s her impression that Newby chose Dillon to replace her, although she said she’s unsure why there hasn’t been a formal announcement about the transfer in power.

Stroud said she didn’t ask for the change and didn’t feel overly burdened by the job.

Stroud was reelected in 2022. Her eight-year term is scheduled to end in January 2031.

To win that election, Stroud had to survive a Republican primary challenger named Beth Freshwater Smith. Smith was publicly backed by multiple influential Republican politicians — including Supreme Court Justice Phil Berger Jr. Several Republicans in the state Senate, which is led by Berger’s father, financially backed Smith’s campaign.

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Stroud said Tuesday that she and Newby didn’t talk politics over the phone when he called her to inform her about the demotion — but that she wouldn’t be surprised if that had something to do with it.

“That is my intuition based on a lot of things, over a long time,” she said.

Stroud declined to elaborate.

When the North Carolina Court of Appeals was created in 1967, the Supreme Court’s chief justice was given the power to name the chief judge of the Court of Appeals. The leadership role has traditionally gone to the judge with the most seniority on the bench, Stroud said. Dillon is her junior by six years.

Newby said after that 2019 decision that Cooper’s choice not to make him the chief justice, despite his seniority on the court, “further erodes public trust and confidence in a fair judiciary, free from partisan manipulation.”

Newby later went on to beat Beasley in the 2020 election and will serve as chief justice through the end of 2028.