The North Carolina Code of Judicial Conduct differs little from the judicial codes of the other 50 states, the District of Columbia, and the federal judiciary. Among its edicts:

• “A judge should …personally observe appropriate standards of conduct to ensure that the integrity and independence of the judiciary shall be preserved.” [Canon 1]
• “A judge should respect and comply with the law and should conduct himself/herself at all times in a manner that promotes public confidence in the integrity and impartiality of the judiciary.” [Canon 2]
• “A judge may speak, write, lecture, teach, participate in cultural or historical activities, or otherwise engage in activities concerning the economic, educational, legal, or governmental system, or the administration of justice….if in doing so the judge does not cast substantial doubt on the judge’s capacity to decide impartially any issue that may come before the judge…”[Canon 4]

Despite all of these strictures, Justice Earls gave an interview to Law360 in which she suggested that the justice system is racially biased, citing the lack of racially diverse clerks, and suggested that white judges and other court personnel discriminate against black and female lawyers. She also stated that her conservative colleagues on the North Carolina Supreme Court are more concerned with advancing the conservative legal movement than with their duty to improve the court system. She specifically singled out her own court’s Chief Judge, citing him as an example of “the general antipathy towards seeing that racial issues matter in our justice system.”

These comments to the media violated all of those ethics provisions above, and arguably some others. A lawyer violates North Carolina ethics rules by impugning the integrity of a judge (NCRPC 8.2), and for a state Supreme Court Justice to do this is infinitely more damaging to the public’s respect for and trust of the justice system. After that interview, the Court launched an official investigation to determine whether she had violated the Judicial Code and undermined the judicial system.

Good.

Obviously, she had. Just as obviously, the disciplinary process had to be triggered by such flagrant disregard for her obligation to maintain trust in the system. She won election to the Court—Ugh. Judges should not be elected, anywhere, because the public doesn’t comprehend what judges do and what qualities make a good one—based on her career as a civil rights, diversity and “social justice” activist. A judge is obligated to be a judge, not an activist. But to add one more “obviously” to the list, Anita Earls calculated that as the only Justice-of Color on the Court, she could violate the judicial code of ethics without serious consequences.

Right on cue, the far-left, serially unethical legal gossip sheet and Democratic Party mouthpiece Above the Law (ABL) rushed to her defense beginning with misleading headline: “Black Judge Said Diversity Is Good, So Her Colleagues Launched Disciplinary Probe.” Lawyers write this rag, and that headline comes close to violating Rule 8.4, which prohibits lawyers from engaging in dishonesty, misrepresentation, fraud and deceit. ATL knows she isn’t being investigated because she said “diversity is good”: I just explained why she’s being investigated. Then the scandal sheet goes on to back up Earl’s defense that her First Amendment rights are being violated.

Statements in public by lawyers and judges are conduct regulated by the professional ethics codes. It’s pretty funny, really: Above the Law is one of the progressive critics of the U.S. Supreme Court arguing that those justices need an ethics code, but when a state justice of the “right” ideological persuasion brutally breaches core principles of judicial ethics, the site’s (predictable) response is “Ethics codes are unconstitutional.”

Then ATL defaults to a passel of rationalizations, all allowing it to attack other justices on the N.C. Supreme Court. They are white, after all. But those rationalizations aren’t relevant. The judicial code doesn’t say a judge can publicly impugn a court, another judge or the justice system if the criticism is arguably justifiable (and, I must say, one of Earl’s colleagues sounds like a toxic jerk). “But he deserves it!” (#2, “Sicilian Ethics”) is a rationalization for unethical conduct. So is “she’s the only black judge on the court”: it’s The King’s Pass (#11). So is “It’s for a good cause” (if you believe, as Earls does, that diversity for the sake of diversity is “good”). That’s “The Saint’s Excuse,” #13. There are others: ABL is nothing if not versatile with rationalizations.