Judge Hill resigns

Suspended Wake Judge Evelyn Werth Hill will resign, effective Jan. 31, under an agreement that preserves her eligibility for a retirement package worth more than $60,000 a year.

The embattled Superior Court judge tendered her resignation Friday to Gov. Mike Easley.

Hill, 57, already had been relieved of her duties for demonstrating a "habitual pattern of misconduct in office." Earlier this month, Chief Justice Beverly Lake Jr. suspended Hill as she faced allegations of professional misconduct for the third time in the five years she has served on the bench.

Only two other judges have faced so many misconduct allegations since the N.C. Judicial Standards Commission was created in 1973 to oversee judicial ethics. The other two judges received censures and, as Hill has done, eventually retired.

But it's rare for the chief justice to suspend a judge.

On Dec. 1, Lake took that action for what he called "persistent intemperance." Hill was allowed to keep her pay but not hold court. She could have been fired outright, however, with a recommendation from the Judicial Standards Commission and a vote of the full state Supreme Court.

Her resignation and its acceptance Friday by the commission resolve the latest charges.

"It's, in essence, an agreement that Judge Hill will resign and agree not to hold office in the future, and the commission will dismiss formal proceedings," said Paul Ross, the commission's executive secretary. "She is no longer a judge, and she won't be a judge in the future -- and that takes care of the problem as far as Judicial Standards are concerned."

Had Hill been removed from office, she would have been ineligible for a retirement package based on her judge's salary and would have lost $35,000 a year.

As a judge, she drew an annual salary of $109,279. Because her tenure ends voluntarily, she will receive $60,732 a year in judicial retirement instead of the $25,200 a year she would have received in a regular state retirement. That lower amount would have been based on the salary she received as an assistant district attorney for more than 20 years.

Hill was sworn in as a judge in January 2001. According to the state treasurer's office, Hill reached the five-year mark as a judge in December. That milestone vested her in the judicial retirement system. As a result, the 21 1/2 years she served as a prosecutor were counted like judicial years, giving her $5,061 a month in retirement.

Problems on the bench

As a Wake assistant district attorney, Hill won many major convictions, including guilty verdicts against brothers Elmer and Robert McNeill for the 1993 slayings of two employees at a North Raleigh Food Lion. As a prosecutor, Hill was regarded by other lawyers as intelligent and effective.

When she became a judge, however, defense lawyers complained in various appeals that she was insulting, obnoxious and intimidating. Some contend that Hill never fully shed her prosecutorial point of view to become a neutral judge.

Complaints were filed against Hill, resulting in two censures by the state Supreme Court -- one in 2003 and again in March.

The first censure stemmed from a 2001 case in which she called a lawyer insensitive, heartless and incompetent. It also rebuked her for pretending to grab a male sheriff deputy's genitals in 2002.

This year's censure was for referring to a black lawyer as "a token" during a case in 2001, and for telling a soft-spoken lawyer in 2002 to use his "big-boy voice."

She was facing a third set of charges before the state's judicial ethics board -- this time for more serious willful misbehavior in the trial of a convicted sex offender.

That man won his bid for a new trial this month on the same day Hill was suspended. The Supreme Court ruled that Douglas Shane Wright deserved to be tried again because Hill berated his lawyer in front of a jury during Wright's 2003 trial, violating his legal right to fairness. Hill's actions and comments also led to a new trial for at least one other man.

The agreement for Hill to resign was negotiated between her lawyer and a lawyer representing the Judicial Standards Commission. In her four-sentence resignation letter, Hill wrote that she has seen "remarkable changes" since her career began in 1979 and wished the governor and his family a "very Merry Christmas."

(Staff writer Andrea Weigl contributed to this report.)