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When President Barack Obama nominates a new federal judge for the Middle District of North Carolina, he can choose between two women with very different professional backgrounds.

One had been widely expected to get the job since the vacancy opened last December when Judge N. Carlton Tilley stepped back to “senior status.” But the other might be just what Obama is looking for.

The first is Catherine Eagles of Greensboro, Guilford County’s senior resident Superior Court judge. Appointed to the bench by Gov. Jim Hunt in 1993, she has been elected three times since then.

Eagles, 50, earned her law degree at George Washington University and is regarded in local legal circles as very smart and an important member of the N.C. Conference of Superior Court Judges.

She’s a Democrat, the right party to win an important appointment from the new president. And, because she has 16 years’ experience on the bench and because she and Democratic Sen. Kay Hagan are close friends, it was assumed Hagan would recommend Eagles’ nomination. Eagles would only have to move her office across Market Street from the Guilford County Courthouse to the federal courthouse.

Hagan did recommend Eagles to the White House  this month, but only as one of three candidates. Obama requested three names for all federal openings subject to presidential appointment. Furthermore, Hagan relied on the advice of a screening committee headed by former N.C. Supreme Court Chief Justice Burley Mitchell.

Which puts Eagles essentially in competition with Edwin G. Wilson Jr., senior resident Superior Court judge in Rockingham County, and Anita Earls, executive director of the Southern Coalition for Social Justice in Durham.

I’m predicting that Wilson is the odd man out. Women are under-represented on the federal bench, especially in North Carolina. Besides, Wilson has less judicial experience than Eagles and lacks the other factors that might make Earls the favorite.

She is 49 and a Yale Law graduate with more than 20 years as a civil rights attorney “working on issues of structural racism, voting rights and community empowerment,” according to the Southern Coalition for Social Justice Web site.

She was a deputy assistant attorney general in the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice from 1998-2000, when current U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder was deputy attorney general.

Furthermore, Earls was a very early supporter of Obama’s presidential campaign. “I signed up the day he announced,” she told me Monday. She was an Obama delegate at last year’s Democratic National Convention.

There’s also a personal similarity. Earls comes from “a mixed-race family,” she said. Her father was black, her mother white, and she considers herself African American.

How will these circumstances figure into the president’s decision?

“I have no reason to expect or think my personal political involvement gives me any advantages” in securing the nomination, she said.

Eagles, who is white, said, “I trust the president to make the right decision.”

If it comes down to qualifications, it’s still a matter of preference.

Eagles cites her experience on the bench: “It means I have a track record,” which includes demonstration of her judicial temperament and work ethic.

“I certainly know how to preside over a jury trial. I’ve done hundreds,” she said.

Earls hasn’t, but she has argued many cases in federal court as a litigator, she said, even at the appellate level in three different circuits.

Her experience in criminal cases is limited, but she has “a very personal reason for caring about” criminal-justice issues, she told me: Her brother was a murder victim. A suspect was arrested but never prosecuted, Earls said.

She is seeking a job that would set her career in a sharply new direction. Just after Obama’s Supreme Court nominee, Sonia Sotomayor, was questioned by conservative critics for perceived activism, here’s Earls, a very definite liberal activist. Could she adjust?

“I’ve certainly thought a lot about the difference between the role of a judge and the role of an advocate,” she said, adding she appreciates judges who view cases objectively.

Mitchell, who headed Hagan’s screening panel, thought about it, too.

“There’s no doubt she’s been a strong advocate for certain causes, but that’s as an attorney,” he said of Earls. “Advocates advocate, judges judge.”

Becoming a judge is a learning process, he said. “Most conservatives and liberals are able to adjust to the role of referee.”
Earls, he added, “is very bright and dedicated to the law and to justice.” Her background is “a little different from many,” but her credentials are “top notch.”

All three — Eagles, Earls and Wilson — are “very strong,” Mitchell said. Hagan, in a statement released by her office, called them “outstanding candidates.”

Here’s my hunch: From the perspective of the White House, Anita Earls is the one who stands out most.

Thanks for reading. You can call me at 373-7039, email me at dgclark@news-record.com or post a comment here.