N.C. Supreme Court Chief Justice Paul Newby appointed Chris Dillon as the new chief of the N.C. Court of Appeals, succeeding Donna Stroud, who has held the post since January 2021.
The change took effect Monday.
The court’s most senior judge has traditionally filled the chief judge slot. Stroud has served on the court since 2006 and was elected to her third eight-year term in the 2022 election.
In that election, Stroud overcame a GOP primary challenge in which her opponent, Beth Freshwater Smith, received support from N.C. Supreme Court Judge Phil Berger Jr. He criticized Stroud for supporting a “dems candidate” for a clerk’s job, according to a Facebook post. Berger’s father is the N.C. Senate president pro tem.
Campaign committees affiliated with Berger and fellow GOP appeals court justices Jefferson Griffin and Jeffery Carpenter each contributed several thousand dollars to an independent political organization that ran ads critical of Stroud during the 2022 campaign.
A call to Newby’s office was referred to the N.C. Administrative Office of the Courts. Publicist Graham Wilson didn’t return a request for comment.
Dillon was elected to the appeals court in 2012. The graduate of UNC Chapel Hill’s law school previously worked as lawyer in private practice, as a commercial real estate broker and as a community bank executive. His late father, C.A. Dillon, was a well-known Raleigh businessman who retired as president of the Dillon Supply industrial equipment company in 1990.
When the North Carolina Supreme Court was formed in 1967, its chief justice was empowered to name the chief appellate judge, WRAL.com reported. There are 15 members of the N.C. Court of Appeals. Stroud remains on the court, while Newby’s term runs through 2028.