Democrat Melinda H. Crouch, NC District Court, District 6, Seat 3
Career: Crouch practiced law in Wilmington for more than two decades before her appointment to the bench in 2007, presiding primarily in Family Court in New Hanover County.
Education: Crouch received her undergraduate degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and her J.D. from Campbell University Law School.
Interview responses have been edited for brevity.
For those who have never met you and don't know what you do, please introduce yourself, tell us what you’re running for, and why you think you deserve the people’s vote.
I'm Melinda Crouch. I have lived in Wilmington, North Carolina, since graduating from law school in 1984. I had 23 years as an attorney practicing in district superior appellate courts, and in 2007 I was appointed to this seat, which is District Six, Seat Three of the District Court.
I serve in Family Court in New Hanover County primarily. That's three weeks out of a month, and I serve in Pender County on DSS Fridays, where I hear juvenile matters of abuse, neglect, and dependency.
I was a licensed attorney in both North Carolina and South Carolina before becoming a judge.
I was president of the judicial district Bar at one time, I practiced a wide variety of cases, not just criminal, not just civil, not just family court, not just juvenile, but in all of those types of cases.
So I did that as a practicing attorney, and I hear all of those types of cases as a judge.
I think that having the experience of being on both sides of being an attorney in those areas, as well as having a wide range of types of cases, best qualifies me for this position.
What do you think qualifies you to take this role beyond your law degree?
Okay. Well, I'm a wife and a mother. I have two grown children.
Having had a family, and working with family dynamics, and seeing the challenges that sometimes kids face in school or beyond — I think that helps bring some insight into how to treat people and how to recognize certain problems that may be the reason that people are in front of the court.
When was the last time you had to make a difficult decision on a certain legal or moral issue? How did you handle it?
As district court judges, you have difficult decisions daily. Sometimes it is a question of which parent is best suited to have a child. Those are always very difficult.
Sometimes both parents are both wonderful, but for various reasons, whether it is military service or other things that are going to cause there to be a distance between parents, that's often a real challenge as to how to figure out what is truly going to be in the child's best interest.
What I have to look at is all the factors that may be weighing on both sides, because there are three primary things that can cause childhood depression, and that is divorce, death, and moving.
Those things can come into play, and so you have to look at how a child is going to adjust to whatever decision that you make.
What is your philosophy on sentencing, within the constraints set by structured sentencing?
So, sentencing in district court is often driven by someone's philosophy, and why I say that is that a lot of what we see in district court is driven by mental health issues, substance abuse issues, and domestic violence issues.
And so, if you can try and address those underlying problems with the sentencing, that's probably going to be the best for the community and the best for the individual.
Rather than putting them in jail, that's not a good place for someone with mental health issues. It's not a good place for someone with substance abuse issues.
So oftentimes you have to determine, would this person be able to return to being a productive member of society better if they could get their substance abuse issues under control rather than going to jail? At some point, people have to be held accountable.
So, my philosophy on sentencing is what caused you to be here. Why are you here? Not just what you did, but what caused you to be in that situation.
Judges determine how the law is applied, and not what the law should be. How will you balance between being an independent judge who rules on what the law is, and an elected official who has a responsibility to your voters?
Every day in court, I have two sides. There is either the prosecution and the defense, or the attorneys for parents on one side or the other, or it may be the Department of Social Services versus respondent parents, and I can't make decisions based upon making someone mad or not mad.
Obviously, there are going to be situations where one side or the other is going to feel like they didn't get what they wanted. They may understand that they got what they deserved, but they may not like the result.
So I face that dilemma every day with every decision. It's not always about pleasing people. It's about doing the right thing and following the law.
As a judge, you take a sworn oath to protect the Constitution of the United States and the state of North Carolina, and I try to uphold that every day.
What is a bias/prejudice that you currently struggle with? How do you work to overcome that prejudice?
Well, I think every judge probably has pet peeves, and there are two pet peeves that I have.
One is people stealing, and two is littering. And I have to take a step back when I'm dealing with people, you know, pleading guilty or being found guilty, that the punishment should fit the crime.
I give them a lecture. Usually, my bark is worse than my bite, but I often tell them about the impact that their action has on the owner, just to try and get across, not only is it morally wrong, but it's, you know, illegal.
What is a quality you have seen in a judge that you would seek not to emulate on the bench?
You know, court time is precious, and there are oftentimes lots of cases that have to be heard. But everyone deserves their right to be heard in court and have their day in court.
I am probably notorious about asking, "anything else?" I try to be very patient, especially because I have a lot of litigants that are self-representing. So oftentimes they are afraid, they are disorganized, they are upset.
When you take the time not only to be patient with them, but to also explain the process before you begin, and explain first and foremost, if you're in a civil hearing, nobody's going to jail unless they commit acts of contempt.
Everyone's nervous to be here. So I try to take time to inform people of how the process works, and then give them an opportunity to get organized.
I've seen as a practicing attorney where judges don't always practice patience, but I think that's one of the biggest things that they need to.
What is the biggest mistake you have made in your career? How would you seek to avoid it on the bench?
So I think we recently lost a very good young attorney to suicide, he handled things well, but not recognizing that someone is in a bad place mentally — sometimes you chalk it up to just being overly busy or overly distracted or whatever, but not recognizing that attorneys often have a really hard job.
They have to deal with their clients. Their clients want things that they're not always entitled to, and they have to present their client's case, even if they may not personally agree with that.
So, not recognizing more that perhaps sometimes attorneys are struggling with the pressures of their job. You know, whether it is a flippant remark or something like that. You have to be very careful because you just never know how people take things that are not meant to be hurtful or real criticism.
But it was just really a sad day to learn that that attorney had passed away, and not having recognized that he was in any distress. He did a really fine job, and he was a really fine attorney.
How will you handle conflicts of interest on the bench?
When you have something that might appear as a conflict of interest, the best thing to do is to identify it to the parties and recuse yourself.
Or if the parties say, "No, we don't want you to recuse. We'll waive any conflict of interest." Then, if that's done on the record, you can hear those matters if it's something that's not going to cause you to favor one side or the other.
And so you have to, you need to identify it to the parties, or just go ahead and recuse yourself if you recognize that that would be a conflict or may appear to be a conflict.
You want the courts to be protected as an institution by not creating something that would question the court's Judgment.
How do you define injustice? How will you deal with injustice when you confront it in your courtroom?
I do know that the practice of law, while I've been an attorney, has evolved to sort of rule out injustices that may have happened long in the past.
What I often see, and what I do as a judge, for instance, when I am doing first appearances, I always try and look at every pleading. So the warrants that are charging an individual, to make sure that they meet legal standards.
In order to prevent injustices, that's one thing that I can do for people is to make sure that those things are in order.
So that's one thing, to look thoroughly at a case to make sure that it is properly charged, also to make sure that someone is not improperly held where they could safely be released on a bond to be coming back to court for their court date.
It's not appropriate to punish someone in advance, prior to being convicted. If they're a danger to the community, if they're a danger to the victim, certainly they should have a bond that's reflective of that.
But there are some conditions that can be put on other types of situations where someone's not going to wallow their time in jail awaiting trial, where ultimately that's not a good outcome for either the state or for the individual.
I try to look at those things and balance those things: the danger to the community, the danger if there is a victim, and whether the person is likely to come back to court to hear their court date. So those are ways that I try to address that.
How do you ensure impartiality in your judicial decisions for people of all backgrounds in your courtroom?
I think I rely on my moral compass. I'm someone who's pretty accepting of different backgrounds and different cultures.
I'm not put off by someone having differences from me, and I try to understand that people from different cultures have different ways of handling things and trying to understand where they're coming from and how they may have ended up in court in front of me.
Whether that is in family court or domestic violence court or in criminal court, I try to address every person with dignity.
So I try to meet the people where they are, and find out what it is that's brought them there, and what can I do within the legal bounds to help them from not being back in this position.
