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That election is an example of why I believe that judges should not be elected.
Belk did not like the judge who handled his divorce proceedings, so he decided to run against him. He is vengeful. He threw a ton of money at the campaign and plastered his name everywhere, and people voted for him. Had people done ANY research, they could have found out the backstory, but they did not.
Now a good judge is out of a job and Belk is now a "judge." Who, by the way, is already committing ethical violations.
Belk tries to attend Sonic meeting | CharlotteObserver.com (http://www.charlotteobserver.com/breaking/story/534295.html - broken link)
Conflicts of interest are a big deal to those of us who practice and abide by our ethical obligations.
He will likely argue that all he has to do is recuse himself from cases involving these companies. but that puts a strain on the other judges, and sometimes the conflict would not arise until too late (for example, he might not know that a witness in a proceeding is a Sonic employee until the trial is halfway over, for example, and then there is a mistrial, and a whole bunch of money wasted).
Edited to add: if the code of judicial conduct says he can't do it, then he can't do it. if he wants the rule changed, he needs to abide by it until the rule is changed. disagreeing with the code is not an excuse to ignore it.
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