Judge Reprimanded for Nearly 2-Year Delay in Filing Divorce Ruling
A North Carolina judge has been reprimanded for taking nearly two years to file his ruling in a divorce case.
District Court Judge K. Dean Black, who handles cases from Cleveland and Lincoln counties, didn’t contest the public rebuke, reports the Shelby Star.
The state Judicial Standards Commission ” views such delay as serious misconduct because of the adverse consequences on individual litigants, who are deprived of the opportunity to have their claims decided in a timely manner, and on public confidence in the administration of justice,” the public reprimand states.
However, a number of factors–including a big caseload, the complexity of the case, scheduling conflicts among the parties, a lack of court resources and a need for surgery on the judge’s shoulder–contributed to the delayed ruling, the commission notes.
Black agreed, as part of the resolution of the legal ethics matter, to read the state’s code of judicial conduct, the newspaper article reports.
