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Bill Trimming North Carolina Court Of Appeals Passes Legislature

The North Carolina Senate chamber. (Credit: Jeff Tiberii, WUNC)

The General Assembly has passed a bill to reduce the size of the state Court of Appeals.

The Senate passed the bill Tuesday afternoon and the House quickly followed.

It reduces the size of the court from 15 to 12 judges. No one would immediately lose their job - the reduction would be achieved through retirements or resignations.

The change means more legal matters may be appealed directly to the state Supreme Court.

Republicans say the move is warranted because the appellate court workload has decreased in recent years. But Democrats are concerned that politics are behind the measure because it takes away Gov. Roy Cooper's ability to fill those vacancies when they arise.

Paul Garber is a Winston-Salem native and an award-winning reporter who began his journalism career with an internship at The High Point Enterprise in 1993. He has previously worked at The Augusta (Ga.) Chronicle, The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, The News and Record of Greensboro and the Winston-Salem Journal, where he was the newspaper's first full-time multimedia reporter. He won the statewide Media and the Law award in 2000 and has also been recognized for his business, investigative and multimedia reporting. Paul earned a BA from Wake Forest University and has a Master's of Liberal Arts degree from Johns Hopkins University and a Master's of Journalism and Mass Communication from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He lives in Lewisville.

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