NC Deep Dive
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NC Deep Dive
76: John S. Arrowood (D) - 2026 NC Court of Appeals Seat 1
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Most people can explain what a governor or a legislator does. Far fewer can tell you what the North Carolina Court of Appeals decides even though it is often the final stop for the vast majority of appeals and the place where real lives quietly change course.
We sit down with Judge John Arrowood, the Democratic candidate for North Carolina Court of Appeals Seat 1, to break down how appellate courts work in plain language. We talk about why the Court of Appeals is an error-correcting court, what it means to decide cases from the cold record, and why appellate judges do not re-try facts or re-weigh credibility. John also explains standards of review, how precedent binds panels, and what judicial restraint looks like when the court could rule broadly but chooses a narrower path.
From there, we connect process to impact. The Court of Appeals handles major categories of law that touch daily life across North Carolina: criminal appeals, civil disputes, domestic relations like custody and support, administrative law and workers’ compensation, and child welfare cases including termination of parental rights. We also discuss court funding, the importance of competent representation on both sides, and how changes affecting civil legal aid can shape access to justice for people who cannot afford a lawyer.
We close with practical voter guidance for the 2026 election, including where to read Court of Appeals slip opinions, how to research judges, and why skipping judicial races can have long-term consequences. Subscribe for more North Carolina judicial election coverage, share this with a friend who wants to vote informed, and leave a review to help more voters find the show.
John S. Arrowood: Campaign Finance Report
Info@KeepJudgeArrowood.com
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Early Voting - October 15-31
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ELECTION DAY
Tuesday, November 3 from 6:30 AM to 7:30 PM
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Now, let's dive in!
Welcome & Ballot Basics
Amanda Benbow LunnHello friends, welcome back to the NC Deep Dive. I am your host, Amanda Benbow Lunn. This episode features another of our candidate conversations for the 2026 general election. By my best accounting, it looks like we have 18 contested races with 46 candidates in Southern Wake County, specifically Holly Springs and Fuquay Varina. There are other races that will have only one candidate running, and just as an FYI, we will not be including those races in our candidate conversations. Of course, the races on your particular ballot will vary based on your address and the specific districts your residence falls within. You can always find your jurisdictions and your sample ballot by searching the NC Voter Search made available by the NC State Board of Elections. Once you get to the page, you'll enter your information. It will pop up all those who share your name or the information you provided. You'll scroll until you find you and just verify that your name and address are correct. And then you'll scroll down to the sections that you're looking for. Since there are so many races, please keep in mind your ballot will likely have both a front and a back. So make sure you flip it over when you're voting. And if your time is short, you can see each episode's transcripts along with each episode's chapter titles for particular questions at www.ncdeepdive.com. So if you find it easier to skim through the information and read it, you can do that, or you can just pick the particular chapters that interest you. For this particular episode, we are delving into the North Carolina Court of Appeals for seat one. There are two candidates running in this race, and you will have the opportunity to vote for one of them. The two candidates are John S. Arrowood with the Democratic Party and Michael C. Byrne with the Republican Party. Without further ado, my friends, let's dive in.
John Arrowood: Intro, Why, & Experience
Amanda Benbow LunnOn this episode, I am honored to be speaking with Judge John Arrowwood, who is running for the North Carolina Court of Appeals for seat one. Welcome. If you want to take a few moments to introduce yourself and then speak towards why you're running for this office and what experiences have prepared you to serve in this role.
John C. ArrowoodI am Judge John Arrowwood and I'm running for re-election to seat one on the North Carolina Court of Appeals. My background is I went to law school at Chapel Hill. After law school, I clerked for Gerald Arnold, was a staff attorney and the head of the staff for about five years. I then went to Charlotte, where for 25 years, I was a commercial litigator at the same firm doing civil litigation, representing both plaintiffs and defendants in all sorts of cases involving the civil practice of law. I was a Superior Court judge for a short period of time, and I have over 10 years on the Court of Appeals where I've written over 400 cases that you can read to see what kind of a judge I am. I'm running for re-election because I believe that now is the time that we need judges committed to equal justice, the rule of law, to upholding our constitutional rights and upholding judicial independence.
Appellate Court Versus Trial Court
Amanda Benbow LunnWhat is fundamentally different about serving on an appellate court rather than a trial court?
John C. ArrowoodWell, an appellate court is what we refer to as an error correcting court, is what the Court of Appeals is. We determine everything based upon the briefs and the records. We don't take new evidence. What happens is someone has a trial, a jury or a judge renders a verdict, the person appeals, and what comes to us is what's sometimes referred to as the cold record, the papers that were filed, all of the things, the transcripts in the case. And then the lawyer or the pro se appellant contends, well, the trial court erred in doing X, Y, and Z. And we determine is that correct? We don't hear new evidence, we don't have another trial. The folks do not appear before us, we don't take testimony. All of that's done at the trial level, not at the appellate level.
Amanda Benbow LunnOkay.
What Voters Misunderstand about the Appellate Court
Amanda Benbow LunnWhat do you believe voters most misunderstand about the Court of Appeals?
John C. ArrowoodI don't think a lot of voters understand what the Court of Appeals does and why it is so important. The North Carolina Court of Appeals, after the 23 budget, did away with a right to appeal to the Supreme Court, is the court of last resort of over 90% of the cases. There are 15 judges at the North Carolina Court of Appeals. We're elected statewide in partisan elections. We sit in panels of three. Initially, when the Court of Appeals was initially formed up until 2023, if it was a two-to-one decision, you could automatically appeal to the Supreme Court on the issues raised in the dissent. Now you can't do that. What kind of cases do we hear? We hear all the criminal cases except those where the death penalty has been imposed. We hear all the civil cases except those from the business court. All the domestic relations case, like equal distribution, custody, support, all of those cases come to us. We also hear all the administrative law cases, like if someone's hurt on the job and they go to the industrial commission, or they have a licensing dispute with an agency or something along those lines. We hear all of those except for general rape cases from the North Carolina Utilities Commission. So all of those other cases come to us, as well as all abuse, neglect, dependency, termination of parental rights, all of those cases come to the North Carolina Court of Appeals. And generally, in over 90% of the cases, what that three-judge panel says is the law not only of your case, but of the land in general, because we also have a rule that no panel can overrule another panel.
Amanda Benbow LunnOkay.
Biggest Issue
Amanda Benbow LunnWhat do you believe is the most important issue or challenge facing the people you would represent?
John C. ArrowoodWell, I think these are dangerous times. Benjamin Franklin said at the close of the Constitutional Convention that we've given you a republic if you can keep it. In this election, I think we've got to keep our democratic republic. The rule of law, as we see, is under attack. Constitutional rights are at risk. You're very right to vote in some cases. And so those are all issues that face the citizens of North Carolina, in my opinion. They need judges who are committed to equal justice, who are committed to protecting their constitutional rights, and who are committed to acting as a check and balance to the other two branches of government.
Priorities & Hopes for Accomplishment
Amanda Benbow LunnOkay. If elected, what would you prioritize and what specifically would you hope to accomplish during your term?
John C. ArrowoodWell, what I hope to do is to continue to render justice fairly and without favor to any party or to the state. I hope to continue to serve as a judge, providing equal justice, to provide sound, readable, concise decisions that people can read and understand this is what the law is and this is why the court ruled the way they did in my case.
What's Working Well & What Needs Changed
Amanda Benbow LunnWhat needs improving and what is working well within our judicial system?
John C. ArrowoodWell, most people don't realize, I think, that the third branch of government, the judicial system, operates on about 5% of the general fund. So the court system, in my opinion, is in some places underfunded. At the trial level, we need more district attorneys, more assistant DAs, more assistant public defenders. We may need more trial judges some places. But the other thing we need is a system where folks who can't afford a lawyer are able to obtain pro bono legal services. That was one reason that for many years, I believe it was about nine, I served on the IOLTA board of directors, which is the interest on lawyers' trust accounts. Lawyers can't earn interest on money in their trust accounts, which is other people's money they're holding for a specific purpose. But the state bar can earn that interest. And what the state bar did, and through the Supreme Court, was set up IOLTA, which granted funds out to organizations that provided pro bono legal services to folks who couldn't afford it in certain areas, like Legal Aid of North Carolina or the Pisgah Legal Services, or organizations like that that provided services to folks. In 2025, the General Assembly froze our ability to do that. And in 2026, in the budget, they said, oh no, the state bar can't provide these types of services. We're going to take 15 million of that and give it to IDS, which is inteligent defense services for criminal cases. The state already has a constitutional obligation to provide those services. So what they did was they took these funds that went to civil legal aid and transferred them to fund the state's obligation to provide criminal defense lawyers. And I think there's a great need in our state for folks who can't afford a lawyer to be able to have lawyers in their cases. These are like landlord tenant cases. These could be consumer protection cases. These could be all manner of cases where that legal aid represents folks. And our court system works absolutely the best when both sides are represented by competent attorneys vigorously representing their interests. That's how our court system is set up. And if you've got pro bono folks on both sides or pro bono folks on one side and lawyers on the other, the court system doesn't work as well. And that's why I think it was a grave mistake for the General Assembly to take these funds away from legal aid.
Amanda Benbow LunnNow, might you be able to clarify with their budget when they took their funds, did it fully replace the full state's obligation? Or were they adding it in addition to other funds?
John C. ArrowoodWell, it is unclear. They were trying to raise the rates for folks who provide criminal legal defense because we have a system of public defenders, and we also have a system of where we have private counsel and they are not paid at what they should be paid to do. They're do it providing service, and it's really difficult at the rates they were being paid, which was, I believe, maybe less than $100 an hour to represent folks in criminal cases. They were trying to raise the rates and give them more money so they could attract more people into that area. But they have an obligation to provide those funds whether or not it's a replacement or an addition.
Amanda Benbow LunnOkay.
How Judges Read Statutes
Amanda Benbow LunnHow should an appellate judge approach a case when reasonable judges could interpret the law differently?
John C. ArrowoodWell, there are rules of construction and you have to look at the statute. You have to try to determine the legislative intent, but you also have to then have the overlay to see does the statute violate someone's constitutional rights, which are paramount. You also have to look as an intermediate appellate court, as I said previously, you have to look at have other panels ruled on the case? And if they are, you're bound by it unless you can distinguish what they do. You also have to look to see what is the North Carolina Supreme Court said on this, and you're bound by that. And if it's a federal issue, you're bound on what the United States Supreme Court has said about the case. You look at the facts, you look at the law, and you look at the precedent, and you try to make a determination of what is the most appropriate determination based upon all of those things.
Amanda Benbow LunnOkay.
Evaluating Factual Record
Amanda Benbow LunnHow should an appellate court evaluate the factual record developed by a trial court?
John C. ArrowoodIf there are findings of fact in a case, then you look at the record to see is there evidence from which the trial judge could have made that determination. And so the standard of review is if there's evidence to support the judge's findings, they should be upheld, even if the evidence could have supported something different, but the trial judge made that determination. That's the trial judge's call. It's not our call to replace the trial judge's judgment. It's also not our call to replace the jury's judgment. And we look at the record and determine what facts there are and what the evidence said. And that's how you evaluate the factual determination. We don't get to re-weigh the evidence. We don't get to make new credibility determinations. We don't get to say, well, if I'd been sitting on that jury, I would have done X, Y, or Z. The issue is, is there evidence in the record to support what the trial court did?
Amanda Benbow LunnOkay.
Judicial Restraint Defined
Amanda Benbow LunnWhat does judicial restraint mean to you?
John C. ArrowoodJudicial restraint means that you are bound by precedent, that you don't reweigh what a trial court did with respect to credibility or with respect to it's did they abuse their discretion many times? Judicial restraint requires you to not go out and try to determine things you don't have to determine when a case is before you. Decide the case that's before you and decide it, I believe, as narrowly as you can based upon the facts, law, and the issues that are before you.
Amanda Benbow LunnOkay. And when you say narrowly, what does that mean?
John C. ArrowoodThat means let's say I had a case where I could have determined it on a case of first impression or an issue of first impression that's never been decided before. But I could also determine it based upon another issue that's before me. That let's say I could find error in another issue. I never have to reach the broad case. Decide the case that's before you without you don't have to reach everything that you could reach because you can decide it on a more narrow ground. Like I could decide the trial court erred in the instructing the jury, but they're saying, well, the statute itself is unconstitutional. I don't have to reach the constitutional claim if I can decide the case on a more narrow issue. You do a step process and you determine, okay, this, this, this, and this. And if you have to reach the, I'm not at all opposed to reaching the ultimate issue and the constitutional issue if I need to, but sometimes you can reach it in a more narrow way and decide the case in a more narrow way.
Amanda Benbow LunnOkay.
Approach to the Responsibilities and Decision-Making Authority of this Office
Amanda Benbow LunnHow would you approach the responsibilities and decision-making authority of this office?
John C. ArrowoodWell, I think you've got 10 years of experience as to how I approach the responsibilities. And so what I would encourage your folks to do is look what I've done in the past, see how I approach it, read my opinions, read my concurrences, read my dissents. That's how you can determine how I approach this office. The underlying issue is to render equal justice, uphold the rule of law, protect constitutional rights, and to protect judicial independence.
Equal Justice Defined
Amanda Benbow LunnAll right. Could you speak a little bit more towards what equal justice means?
John C. ArrowoodI believe that equal justice means that regardless of who you are or how good or how bad your attorney may have been, that the law should apply to everyone equally, that no one gets special treatment, and that no one is disadvantaged because of who they are, where they come from, their gender, their race, their sexual orientation, their religious affiliations, or the amount of money they have in their pocket.
Role of Real World Consequences in Decision Making
Amanda Benbow LunnWhat role, if any, should the real-world consequences of a ruling play in appellate decision making?
John C. ArrowoodWell, as someone who represented clients for over 25 years, I'm quite well aware of the consequences of whatever ruling I make. I know what we decide has a great deal of effect on those individual people. But I'm also aware that because of the makeup of in-ray civil penalties, it binds you, that you're binding things for the future as well. But you've got to decide the case on the facts and the law that's before you. And you've got to apply the law as it exists to the facts that you find. And there are occasions when people can read what you write more broadly, and you've got to be aware of that. And I think you also have to be aware that that's why it's important to write concisely and to write clearly so that what you say does not get overblown in some other perspective. And as an appellate judge, you have to be aware of that, in my opinion.
Impartiality Defined in Practice
Amanda Benbow LunnWhat does impartiality mean in practice?
John C. ArrowoodImpartiality in practice means you take the facts that you're presented, apply it to the law, and you apply it in the same way to everyone who comes before you.
Amanda Benbow LunnHow do you prevent personal beliefs from influencing your interpretation of the law?
John C. ArrowoodWell, as an appellate judge, you take an oath to uphold the Constitution and to apply the law fairly and without favor. I take that oath very critically. And but I think one way that folks probably may not understand is that you are bound by all these precedents. You are bound by all of the things. Every case I decide does not turn out the way I might have liked it to, but it I try to make it, my opinion, reflect what the law says it should do.
Amanda Benbow LunnHow
Applying the Law versus Creating New Law
Amanda Benbow Lunnshould an appellate judge distinguish between applying the law and creating new law?
John C. ArrowoodWell, as an intermediate appellate judge, the opportunity or even the implication to create new law is very narrow. Because, as I said, we're determining did the trial court air when it did X, Y, or Z in the trial below? If there are cases of first impression, yes, you get to interpret the law. Those come along rarely, but we do see issues of first impression. And some people would say that you're creating the law then. I think you're just applying what you believe the law is, but there are cases of first impression where you get to say this is what I believe the law is.
Amanda Benbow LunnCould you explain what a case of first impression is?
John C. ArrowoodA case of first impression is one where that no appellate court has ever ruled upon that particular issue.
Deciding What Takes Precedence
Amanda Benbow LunnAll right. When priorities compete or resources are limited, how would you decide what takes precedence?
John C. ArrowoodI'm not sure that's really a judicial question because we're not determining how money is spent or things such as that. We're just determining whether the case before us is an error or not. Determining how resources are spent is a legislative issue, not a judicial issue, in my opinion.
Amanda Benbow LunnIs there any effect on the time that you can apply to cases? Is there a judicial backlog? Like what does that look like in the judicial system?
John C. ArrowoodWell, in the trial levels, sometimes there are judicial backlogs. And what cases get tried first, and those kinds, those are issues for the trial court or the district attorney in criminal cases, the trial court and case management. So the but whether there's enough trial judges or enough DAs or enough public defenders, that's also a legislative realm. At the appellate court, what I do think is important is we have rules that say that if it's a terminational parental rights case, that you're supposed to render your opinion within 30 days of the date that the case is calendared. And all the others were supposed to render it within 90 days of the date that the case is calendared. And I work really hard and drive my law clerks really hard to make sure that we follow all of those. Unfortunately, what we have seen as the number of new judges have come to the Court of Appeals, like two-thirds of our judges have less than a full term of experience. And a quarter of our judges have less than five years of experience. As we've got an influx of new judges, times have slowed, slowed down, and the 90-day lists are longer. And I try my best to make sure that I don't contribute to the 90-day list by making sure that we in my chambers we circulate opinions timely and that we work really hard to not make folks wait.
The Appellate Process
Amanda Benbow LunnOkay. And when you say when they're calendared, I am completely unfamiliar with the process. So is that when they file the appeal or when does that start?
John C. ArrowoodNo, let me explain to you how it happens. When a case is tried in the trial court, you have a certain number of days to issue a notice of appeal if you're unhappy. After the notice of appeal is done, you then have a number period of days in which to put together the record, form the record, and agree upon the record or have it judicially settled by the trial court if you can't agree upon what should be in the record that comes to the Court of Appeals. Once the record is filed, the appellant has 30 days in which to file their brief. Once their brief is filed, the appellate has 30 days to file an appellate's brief in response to that. And in some cases, then there's an ability for the appellant to file a reply to the appellate's brief. Once the briefing is completed, they are then put in a queue to be put on the count, what we call calendared. And the Court of Appeals. Is actually in pretty good shape on the once things are completed put on to be put on the calendar. We sit twice a month for a week at a time, five panels, and each panel gets nine to twelve cases depending on what's ready to be heard. And then the calendar goes out about 30 days in advance. And it has a date when this case is calendared to be heard. If there's an argument, the date of the argument is the calendar date. That's when the calendar and you have 90 days from that date in order to render an opinion.
Amanda Benbow LunnOkay. Could you walk me through what it's like to like have it be calendared and then the process before you do render your opinion?
John C. ArrowoodWell, I'll walk you back a little bit further than that. Sure. Before the case is calendared, we have staff. As I told you, I used to be a staff lawyer there at the court. We have staff and a particular person on staff that sends a proposed calendar to the panel and said, these are the cases that would appear based upon the system that they have to calendar them. These are the cases that would appear on your panel. Do you have any conflict? Is there some case you can't hear because you have a conflict? There are nine to twelve cases. We normally only hear arguments in one or two of those cases. The rest are decided on, as we would say, the papers, which is the briefs and records and transcripts. And then they deliver those, they're also available electronically, but they deliver the hard copy to your office. And I as a judge go through them. And if I'm the senior judge, then I assign who's to write the opinion at the very beginning. So you know who's to write the opinion.
Amanda Benbow LunnSo which one of the three that are on the panel?
John C. ArrowoodYes. And if you get it assigned to you, you know you're going to be writing something. You're either going to write the opinion, or if you disagree with your colleagues, you're going to be writing a dissent. And so different people, then we have two law clerks and either an executive assistant or an administrative law clerk. That's our staff. And different people use their staffs in different ways. Because of my experience, I mainly use my staff to work on opinions that I know that I'm going to be writing. The others I work on myself. I read the briefs, I read the record. I determine what I believe to be the issues, what my vote is to the outcome is going to be. If there are issues that I need more research on, I may ask one of my research assistants or law clerks. That term is used interchangeably, by the way, when you hear folks to I use them to maybe, can you find me more cases than what they briefed this on? Or I think there's another case out there that may say something that neither of these parties raised. Can you help me find it if I can't find it myself? But at the same time, I have this track where I have my people, my clerks, working on my cases. And I read those too, but I ask them to tell me what they think the outcome should be. They're researching and working and putting together drafts of things for me to look at. And I don't tell them what I think it should be before I see what I want. We have it and a discussion. And then I tell them, well, this is what I think the outcome should be. I want them to tell me as well because I don't want to influence them. So that and that so I have them prepare an initial draft of it, may if it's on for argument, it may be a bench brief and question for me that proposed questions they think I should ask. And then we start preparing, working on a draft opinion. And my clerks normally work on the first draft of an opinion. They send it to me after the case is calendared and on for argument. If it's not on for argument, we have a vote, and the judges vote this is how I believe this case should come out. And if there's a dispute then between the three judges, and it's called a conference, and we then, or not a dispute, if there's a disagreement, then we may talk about it and decide why we each think it is the way it is. Before it's on the calendar, before it's on for argument, you've read it all the briefs, you've read the record, you've gone through the transcript, you've looked at all the stuff, and you've decided, you know, this is how I believe it should come out. Then you draft an opinion after and you edit. Opinions are drafted, they send them to me, I revise them, or I may say, I don't think this is what it is. I may write something and send it back and say, is this supportable? Isn't this what really this case says, or isn't this what that case says? And a discussion back and forth. And then after a period of time in my chambers, we then do what I call a site check, where we go through and make sure that all the facts that we've cited are supported in the record with a record site. All the opinions that we cite really say what they say, and that all the pinpoints are right, and then we circulate it to the other two judges.
Amanda Benbow LunnOkay.
John C. ArrowoodAnd they either concur or they may say, Well, I concur in the result, or they may say, I disagree with you, I'm gonna write a dissent, or I agree with your result, but I think it this and they may write a concurrence or a dissent. And once everything's been written and finalized, then the case is filed in the clerk's office and you can see it.
Amanda Benbow LunnMm-hmm. All right. It sounds like you need the ability to kind of work off each other as sounding boards to be kind of firm in your understanding of the law and the facts before you, but also open to did I miss something? Is there a perspective I'm not seeing? And then kind of like a checks and balances within your own group, but then the panel altogether.
John C. ArrowoodRight. And that's why that's why I try to hire bright young lawyers to to clerk for me.
Accountability: What & How
Amanda Benbow LunnWhat should voters hold you accountable for if you're elected and how?
John C. ArrowoodVoters should hold me accountable to uphold the rule of law, to render equal justice, to protecting their constitutional rights, and to protecting judicial independence. And they should hold me accountable as to whether or not I'm doing my work or any judge is doing their work timely. And they hold you accountable by reading what you do, and they hold judges accountable at the ballot box.
Judicial Independence Defined
Amanda Benbow LunnAnd you mentioned judicial independence. Could you tell me your definition of that?
John C. ArrowoodWell, I believe that judicial independence means that you're not beholden to any other branch of government. You're not beholden to the legislature, you're not beholden to the executive branch, you're willing to act as a guardrail to them. It's like, as I've heard someone describe a three-legged stool. For the stool to stand, each branch needs to be far enough apart and stand on its own to be able to support our democracy and our republic so that no branch can have undue influence on the other and how they are doing their work. We need to hold to make sure that the executive is properly executing the law. We need to make sure that the legislature is not overstepping its bounds. There needs to be a separation of powers, and we need to make sure that the legislation or that the way it's being implemented does not violate someone's either state or federal constitutional rights. And that's judicial independence in the way I look at
Last Thoughts
John C. Arrowoodit.
Amanda Benbow LunnAll right. As we wrap up, is there anything we haven't discussed that you would like voters to know or anything from our conversation that you'd like to expand upon or clarify?
John C. ArrowoodWhen folks go to the polls on November 3rd, in my race, I hope they take into account my experience, both in the public and private sector. I hope they take into account my record of the cases that I've written to determine what I believe shows that I am committed to equal justice, committed to the rule of law, committed to protecting their constitutional rights, and committed to enforcing judicial independence. I want voters to know how important these races are and how they have the ability to affect their everyday life and why they should vote in these races. There's a drop-off many times between people who vote at the top of the ticket and they leave judicial races blank. I want people to understand how important it is to have judges who have experience and who have an understanding of what it is to be a judge committed to equal justice.
Amanda Benbow LunnAnd
Where to Learn More
Amanda Benbow Lunnfor voters who want to learn more about you, your platform, your campaign endorsements, and priorities, where can they go to find that information?
John C. ArrowoodMy website is keepjudgeharewood.com.
Amanda Benbow LunnOkay. And for those that are interested in reading your opinions or dissents, the North Carolina Court of Appeals is nccourts.org.
John C. ArrowoodAnd if you go to nccourts.org and you go to the Court of Appeals and you look at slip opinions, then you can go through and I'm sure there's a way you can go through and search for my name, but you can look at the opinions and see what's like the last Wednesday. There are, I don't know, 10 or 12 opinions that were filed, several of them published, some of them which I had a dissent, some of them where I had a concurrence and a dissent, some where other people had concurrences and dissents. But you'll they'll see published and unpublished, but they can read all of them. The difference between published and unpublished opinions are that published opinions create what I refer to as the N-RA Civil Penalties law. And they get published in the green books, in published reports. The unpublished opinions are available, but they are not presidential in value. They do not bind anyone. And a large majority of my cases, I would say, are probably unpublished. I normally get to make that decision. And the reason I do that is I say, I think we've killed enough trees printing books because most of our cases, they're extremely important to the parties, but they're not issues that are necessarily extremely important to our jurisprudence because they're just applying settled law to the facts of that case. And the facts are not particularly any different than, you know, it's not a unique fact pattern. I try to keep my published opinions to those that create new interpretations, new fact patterns, or that addresses an issue that may not have been addressed before.
Amanda Benbow LunnOkay. Well, thank you so much, John, for joining us today. I appreciate you taking the time to speak towards all of these questions and helping us understand the role of the appellate court. And I appreciate you talking to voters directly. I wish you the best with your campaign.
John C. ArrowoodThanks.
Closing Reflections & Voting Info
Amanda Benbow LunnDemocracy is built on participation. Politics can sometimes feel distant or abstract, but the decisions made by our elected officials at the county, state, and federal levels have a profound effect on the communities we call home and the way we live our lives. From the roads we drive on and the schools our children attend to public safety, parks and recreation, housing, health care, taxes, the economy, and the many other services and amenities that make up our communities, government plays a role in shaping both our everyday experience and our future. That makes taking the time to understand the choices on your ballot and the people asking for your vote an important part of being an engaged member of your community. Early voting for the 2026 midterm election begins October 15th and runs through October 31st. In Southern Wake County, there will be early voting locations at the Hunt Center in Holly Springs, the Hilltop Needmore Town Park Clubhouse in Fuquay Varina, Beech Bluff County Park, and Southern Wake Tech Campus close by. Election Day is November 3rd. A general reminder that you will need a valid photo ID to vote. The regular voter registration deadline is October 9th, although you may still register when you vote during the early voting period. Please note that you cannot register to vote on Election Day itself, and that that day you will absolutely have to vote at your designated precinct location to have access to your full ballot. And because there are so many races and ballot measures this year, your ballot will likely be double-sided. It can be helpful to start on the back so that you don't accidentally overlook anything. You'll vote for the races that apply to your jurisdiction along with statewide amendments and for Southern Wake County voters, local Wake County bond referenda. Voting is one of the ways we take part in the communities we share. You don't have to agree with your neighbors or even with the candidates you've heard here to recognize that our communities are shaped by the people who show up, ask questions, learn about the choices before them, and cast their ballots. So please take the time to get informed, make your voice heard, and encourage the people around you to do the same. Your vote matters. Your voice matters. And you absolutely matter, my friend. And with that, this episode of the NC Deep Dive has come to an end. Please feel free to check out this episode's show notes at ncdeepdive.com for further information and relevant links for this candidate along with general election information. As always, if you have any topics or thoughts you'd like to share, you can find us on social media or email us at ncdeepdive at gmail.com. If you found value in this episode, I'd love for you to subscribe, rate, and share it so that others may more easily be informed. Please make sure to stay tuned for all the relevant candidate, amendment, and referenda episodes for the 2026 midterm election by visiting ncdeepdive.com, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Audible, or wherever you currently listen to your podcast. Until next time, my friends, Namaste: The Love and Light in me sees and honors the love and light in you.
