State Bar inquires into five of Durham DA Tracey Cline's cases

The state agency that regulates and disciplines lawyers in North Carolina has sought information on five cases in which the conduct of Durham District Attorney Tracey Cline is under scrutiny.

The N.C. State Bar on Friday received an unspecified number of pages from the court files of Michael Peterson, Keith Kidwell, Angel Richardson, David Yearwood and Michael Dorman, according to Archie Smith, Durham Clerk of Court. Smith said the entire files were not requested, but he could not be more specific about what was turned over to the bar.

He said the bar was billed between $200 and $230 for the documents, which indicates that roughly 900 pages were provided to the bar.

Cline could not be reached for comment. She has denied any wrongdoing in those cases.

The bar's general counsel has declined to comment on any activity by the bar. The News & Observer had previously reported that the bar requested the judge's ruling in the Dorman case, in which a murder charge was dismissed. The judge, Orlando Hudson, said Cline failed to preserve the bones of a presumed murder victim.

The action by the bar is a significant sign that its investigators are studying the actions taken by Cline this year - and in the past week. On Monday, the ongoing controversy reached a dramatic moment when Cline stood in court and alleged that Hudson, the county's senior judge, was biased against her and should be removed from all criminal cases in Durham.

Cline had filed her allegations against Hudson in the Peterson and Yearwood cases, accusing the longtime Superior Court judge of "corruption" and "moral turpitude" among a range of unsubstantiated allegations.

Cline's effort was unsuccessful, and it drew criticism from the judge who heard her complaint and from a range of Durham's legal community that had been subpoenaed as possible witnesses.

Her claim in the Peterson case was dismissed by Judge Carl Fox of Orange County, a former prosecutor. Cline withdrew similar efforts in the Yearwood and Dorman cases, but Cline has indicated she will revisit her claims.

The N&O has reported extensively on the Kidwell, Richardson and Yearwood cases this year. All three defendants are criticizing Cline's prosecutions of them.

And most recently, records showed that Cline filed motions seeking a judge's order to obtain confidential prison visitation records on all three defendants after the prison system refused her requests.

But Cline cited as a reason for seeking the records that Kidwell and Richardson had each filed a "motion for appropriate relief" and were attacking the jury verdicts. Neither has sought that relief. Both inmates are still before the state Court of Appeals, which means Cline does not have jurisdiction to seek their records.

Cline's motions were written as she sought other records, such as emails and financial documents, through public records requests, in her effort to gather information to support her claims that Hudson should be removed from cases. Cline alleged that Hudson has worked to punish her in all five of the cases for which information has been sought by the bar.

Cline also has said she filed a complaint against Hudson with the commission that oversees judges in North Carolina.

Lawyers for Kidwell and Richardson have filed motions saying that the prison record motions should be tossed out, and that Cline broke state law and violated ethics rules for lawyers in presenting those motions to a judge.

The judge in those motions, James E. Hardin, has scheduled a hearing for Wednesday. Hardin wrote in a recent order that he wanted to hear from the sides "upon a reconsideration as to the prudence of the issuance" of the orders.

Lawyers are bound by rules that say lawyers must be truthful in court and cannot "engage in conduct intended to disrupt a tribunal."