Campaigning for the North Carolina Supreme Court: April Wood hopes to interpret the Constitution justly and interpret laws as they are written

April Wooden remembers working as an legal professional in a personal observe, the place she interacted with a decide who made choices opposite to the regulation however based mostly on their very own private beliefs. This expertise was so upsetting for Wooden, she stated it spurred her to develop into a decide. 

Now, with 20 years of expertise as a decide, Wooden is operating for the North Carolina Supreme Courtroom. Wooden has most lately served on the North Carolina Courtroom of Appeals which she was elected to in 2020, earlier than this she served on the district courtroom bench. 

“We have to have extra conservative justices on the Supreme Courtroom who perceive their function is to interpret and apply the Structure and the regulation because it’s written and never rewrite the legal guidelines. That is the job of the legislature,” Wooden stated. 

Wooden stated that is her foremost objective: to interpret the Structure justly and in the way in which that it’s written. She stated that is her objective as a result of she believes the U.S. founding fathers did a superb job making a basis of a nation and that that is the way in which the Structure was meant to be interpreted. 

She stated she is ready to comply with via on these targets due to the expertise she has gained as a decide. As each a earlier lawyer and decide, she understands the Structure and has expertise decoding the regulation. This expertise she feels is important to serving on North Carolina’s Supreme Courtroom and is a method she stands out from different judges.

“There are seven justices on the courtroom and solely one in every of them has ever been a trial courtroom decide, which I discover surprising contemplating a lot of the appeals come from the trial courts,” Wooden stated. “I have been a decide for 20 years, 18 of these was within the trial courts.”

Via her expertise and the conservative values she holds of decoding the regulation, Wooden feels she is greater than certified to be on the North Carolina Supreme Courtroom. 

“I’ve bought a 20-year observe file of being a decide who treats everybody the identical — pretty and equally — who applies the regulation because it’s written and does not legislate from the bench, who protects and upholds folks’s constitutional rights,” Wooden stated, “and on the finish of the day, all the time strives to do the proper factor, no matter whether or not or not it is a standard factor to do.”