Jim Hardin, the North Carolina DA in the Michael Peterson murder trial, to retire
Jim Hardin has gotten used to being linked to the Michael Peterson murder trial. But after 25-plus years as a prosecutor and a judge, he doesn’t consider it one of his top accomplishments.
“It seems to never end, “ Hardin said Tuesday. “At some point people will move on from it. It’s a constant in some ways.”
Hardin has served a total of 36 years in various positions within the Durham County courthouse, including as an administrative assistant to the district attorney, an assistant district attorney, the district attorney and now as a superior court judge presiding over cases across the state.
He is retiring May 1 to turn his attention to his family’s commercial real estate business and horse farm.
“While I believe I have met my calling to serve as a Superior Court Judge and continue to enjoy this work, I have concluded that it is time for me to focus more attention on matters related to my family and our family business,” Hardin wrote in a media release announcing his retirement.
Since the death of his father in 2019, Hardin said he hasn’t been able to devote enough time to either.
“I have been attempting to be a superior court judge full time and manage the family property, and it has just got to be overwhelming,” he said.
The farm business has five thoroughbred horses, with one training to race, Hardin said in an interview with The News & Observer.
In addition, Hardin and his wife Lori, who have three grown children, recently became grandparents to a baby boy and want to spend more time with their family.
Hardin hopes to serve in a limited capacity in the future as an emergency superior court judge and as mediator.
Michael Peterson trial
Those outside of Durham likely recognize Hardin as the lead prosecutor in the Peterson murder trial and saga documented in books, movies and television series, including “The Staircase” on Netflix.
Peterson, a novelist, local columnist and former mayoral candidate, told police in December 2001 that after spending time by the pool he found his wife, Kathleen Peterson, a Durham socialite and a Nortel executive, at the bottom of a staircase in their Forest Hills mansion, where she bled to death.
Peterson was convicted in 2003 of his wife’s murder after one of the longest trials in North Carolina’s history. He was in prison for eight years before his conviction was overturned due to improprieties at the State Bureau of Investigation.
In 2017 while awaiting a new trial, Peterson entered an Alford plea acknowledging that prosecutors had enough evidence to convict him of voluntary manslaughter and accepted the guilty verdict for the felony without admitting guilt, The News & Observer reported. He was sentenced to less than the eight year he had already spent in prison.
Hardin said he never watched the “The Staircase” in its entirety.
“I know what happened,” he said. “I know how we handled the prosecution, and I don’t believe the state was placed in an unbiased perspective because the folks that produced, it in my opinion, had an agenda.”
Top accomplishments
While the Peterson case made national and international headlines, it isn’t on Hardin’s list of top accomplishments as a prosecutor.
That list includes starting, with the help of others, Durham’s domestic violence court, which was one of the first standalone courts of its kind in the state, Hardin said. Hardin and then judge but now state Rep. Marcia Morey, D-Durham, started teen court as an alternative for youth who got in trouble, Hardin said.
The list also includes the second-degree murder conviction of Timothy Blackwell, who killed a 4-year-old after hitting her family’s minivan while driving impaired. Blackwell was convicted after a first-degree murder conviction was overturned and a second trial ended in a mistrial. Hardin also mentioned convictions for two men involved in the 1994 killing of 2-year-old Shaquana Atwater, who died after being shot while sitting on her porch at the now demolished Few Gardens public housing complex.
Operation Iraqi Freedom, Duke Lacrosse scandal
Hardin led the Durham County District Attorney’s Office from 1994 until 2005 when then Gov. Mike Easley appointed him as a superior court judge.
He spent nine months as a special superior court judge before taking a leave to serve with the U.S. Army Central Command during Operation Iraqi Freedom. He served as a staff judge advocate for the 81st Regional Readiness Command of the U.S. Army Reserve, then returned to Durham.
In 2007, Easley appointed Hardin to temporarily take over as district attorney again after Mike Nifong, his successor, was forced to resign following the Duke lacrosse scandal. Three student-athletes charged with sexually assaulting an exotic dancer in the case were declared innocent after a state investigation, The N&O reported.
Hardin conducted a review of the office, at Easley’s direction, then returned to the bench.
Hardin, a Durham County Superior Court judge now, was elected to a second eight-year term in 2018.
On becoming a lawyer
Hardin said he knew he wanted to be an attorney from a young age.
When he was about 10 years old, he would walk from his grandfather’s furniture store to the courthouse explore the courtrooms and the proceedings.
“I felt as if becoming a lawyer was a direct path to being able to serve the community,” he said.
When Hardin was 13, his family’s home was engulfed a fire that killed his younger brother and two sisters.
“Jimmy tied sheets together and tied them to his bedpost and came down the window on sheets,” Hardin’s mother, Carolyn Hardin, told WRAL in 2003.
After the fire, a prominent attorney in Miami took him under his wing and mentored him, he said.
‘Hard-nosed prosecutor,’ says Peterson judge
Durham County Senior Resident Superior Court Orlando Hudson, who presided over the Peterson case, described Hardin as a” hard-nosed prosecutor” and one of Durham’s best.
He was fair, Hudson said, and knew the state’s responsibility that if someone is going to be charged, the case has to be proven beyond a reasonable doubt.
“He was one of the best at doing that and playing by the rules,” Hudson said. “You certainly can’t say that about all prosecutors.”
During the Peterson trial, Hardin was a “ consummate prosecutor,” Hudson said.
“He played exactly how he had to play it, and for the most part, because of that the jury agreed with him,” Hudson said.
A strictness about him
As a judge, Hudson said, Hardin has a strictness about him, possibly from his military and prosecutor background.
“What that meant, (was) that maybe sometimes he was a little heavy handed,” with sentences, Hudson said. “For the most part he was a fair judge.”
In interviews, local attorneys described Hardin as one of Durham’s most conservative judges, who approached his work in a deliberate and respectful manner.
“He is a public servant for Durham County,” said defense attorney Lisa Williams, whom Hardin hired in the DA’s Office before she became a defense attorney. “I don’t agree with him about everything, but you can’t dispute his loyalty and concerns for the people of Durham.”
Attorney Daniel Meier said Hardin always ran a tight courtroom and stuck to the rules. When he issued rulings, attorneys knew he would follow the statutes.
“He is one of the best judges we have ever had in North Carolina,” Meier said. “He was no nonsense. You want a judge who you know is going to listen to both sides and is going to make the tough decisions.”
Hardin said he has always tried to do what is right.
“I believe the justice system represents many, many masters and to represent the public, represent victims and to ensure that litigants have a fair hearing and an opportunity to be heard,” he said. “If that is conservative, than I am conservative.”
Ultimately, Hardin said, he sought to be a judge who was fair and efficient.
“I’d like to be known as someone who is punctual, who listens to both sides, and does the research required to make the case flow as quickly and as efficiently as possible,” he said.
Staff reporter Brooke Cain contributed to this article.
This story was originally published March 1, 2021 at 9:16 AM.
