Get It Right: Judge Michael Byrne Makes His Case for NC Court of Appeals, Seat 1

Peter Pappas: Welcome back to the Carolina Cabinet. I'm your host, Peter Pappas, in studio with the lovely Laura Mussler. Hello, hello, hello. And joining us this evening is Mr. Michael Byrne, Judge Michael Byrne, running for State Court of Appeals. Good evening, sir. So welcome, welcome.

Michael Byrne: Good evening. Thanks for having me.

Peter Pappas: So always a pleasure to have you. so let me get this out of the way real quick. With this is not a Senate confirmation hearing, so we are not going to be asking you how you're going to judge and rule on things. but I do need to mention, for fairness, Mr. John Arrowwood has been invited twice, did not respond. at the cabinet, we think it's fair to let you know that we did reach out and we hope to hear from him whenever and however he deems himself ready. But we did I did a lot of emails, calls, nothing. So Judge, you're a Wolfpack English major. You went to law school. What were you gonna do before you became a lawyer?

Michael Byrne: Well, originally I I I I'd like to say something exciting like Formula One driver, but my original plan was just to be in sort of the DC, you know, journalism world. I I worked up there between college and law school

Peter Pappas: Mm-hmm.

Michael Byrne: for various, you know, think tanky type groups. That started off in Raleigh, incidentally, where I was an intern for the John Locke Foundation

Peter Pappas: Okay.

Michael Byrne: more years than I care to think about now. And I had the idea when I got to that job, I said, so much of this stuff is connected to the legal world. So I had the notion that I would go to law school and go back to DC, you know, armed with a law degree and new understanding of the law.

Peter Pappas: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

Michael Byrne: That plan was derailed by the fact that I graduated from Campbell Law School and was armed with knowledge of the law, but was also armed with a six-figure student loan debt, which I I I didn't have that in college and I I rapidly figured out that going back up to the think tank world was not gonna take care of that debt and started practicing law and thirty odd years later here we are.

Peter Pappas: Okay. All right. Well maybe you like steak better than beans all the time too, so probably,

Michael Byrne: A little bit.

Peter Pappas: yeah. Okay. So well, let's get a couple of things out of the way. let's see. What's the last book you read? If you had time.

Michael Byrne: the last book I actually read was a biography of William McKinley.

Peter Pappas: Okay. All right. So what and what was in your opinion, you've had a so your career has spanned how many years, decades now at this point?

Michael Byrne: Well, in terms of my legal career, I'm at thirty plus years. yeah, I I I hope so. I mean the cool thing

Peter Pappas: So you know a couple of things. Okay. Yeah, I hope so.

Michael Byrne: about this job is and this career is that you if you're dedicated to it, you learn something new every day. You know, I learned something new in every case that I handle and that's one of the great things about it.

Peter Pappas: I had a friend tell me that's why they call it a practice. Because you're practicing. That's right. I think that's that's when

Michael Byrne: Yep, that's literally true. That's literally true.

Peter Pappas: I still had a while here to become an attorney. He says, remember, that's why they call it a practice. So what in along that same vein, I'm sure there's been judges before you that you admired or had mentored, or they mentored you. What was the best advice you ever got from another judge?

Michael Byrne: that's a great question and and the the answer i is very easy. I as you may recall focused much of my trial career in the Office of Ministry of Hearings where I'm now a judge. And the leader of that office was a judge named Julian Mann III, who was the head of our office for thirty two years.

Peter Pappas: Mm-hmm.

Michael Byrne: And he built the Office of Ministry of Hearings from a rather small organization into a nationally recognized administrative law operation, particularly noted for its nonpartisanship and independence. And as you may recall from our last discussion, around 2019 I started having discussions with Judge Mann about giving something back. I was

Peter Pappas: Mm-hmm.

Michael Byrne: blessed with a very successful career representing state employees and police and could have kept doing that, but started talking to Judge Mann And that led to my becoming administrative law judge. And the day I started, Judge Mann sat me down, he said, and I'm paraphrasing a bit, he said, You did more than 270 cases here, which is more than anybody we have on record. my advice to you is Michael, get it right.

Peter Pappas: Mm-hmm.

Michael Byrne: And that was the best advice I ever received from someone. At the end of the day, that's what this job's all about. Get it right.

Peter Pappas: Right. That's true. I'm pretty straight and to the point. I like this guy. Yeah. Okay.

Michael Byrne: Yeah. he's he's an icon of administrative law. he is interestingly he he's a lifelong Democrat.

Peter Pappas: Mm-hmm.

Michael Byrne: but I never heard a political word out of his mouth. he's indicated that he is endorsing me in this election over Judge Errolwood, which I'm very honored by. I'm honored to have support, you know, from judges on both sides, which I think is a great thing. But

Peter Pappas: Yeah, yeah.

Michael Byrne: I'm particularly honored to have Judge Mann support.

Peter Pappas: Well, and it it's especially it's humbling too that it's somebody that you did admire and somebody that could give you that kind of sage advice. sometimes I wish some of our electeds here would listen to the quote, elder statesmen that have done it. And maybe they're not doing it anymore, but maybe tamp it down a little bit, get some good advice. so

Michael Byrne: That is quite true.

Peter Pappas: that's pretty much any race across this this grand country of ours too. But Most people have never heard of the Office of Administ of Administrative Hearings. It sounds like watching paint dry. I'm gonna just go ahead and admit to that right now. tell s

Michael Byrne: That's exactly what it's like.

Peter Pappas: okay, well then tell them what you actually decide every day. Like

Michael Byrne: So what what we do back in the nineteen eighties, there was a push afoot, and I'm sort of reducing sort of like the prologue to Henry V many years into an hourglass, I'm compressing that sausage making process in the legislation bit. But there became a recognized need for due process involving administrative agency decision making. The essence being if I make a decision as an agency and someone comes to me and says you're wrong, most people don't like to admit they're wrong because they're human beings. And what OAH was created to do was give a source of number one, independent administrative law judge to decide disputes between citizens and agencies. Second, to have a wide variety of expertise in those cases. You know, these cases, as as we discussed before, can be sometimes exceedingly complex. One of the cases I do that may be familiar to your listeners is certificate of need. in North Carolina, it's certificate of need.

Peter Pappas: Okay. Is what what did what was that? What does that mean?

Michael Byrne: And what what that means is let's say, Laura, that you were fortunate enough to win. I don't know if they still have the Irish sweepstakes or not, but let's say you won it. And you were a public spirit citizen as I know you to be, and I said, we're going to make the Laura Mussler trauma hospital in Irwin. And the state will say, that's great. Where's your certificate of need that allows you to operate this hospital facility? the state, and a lot of people don't like that law. That has nothing to do with what I do. I just, you know, implement the law that the General Assembly put in place. But in essence, companies bid For the opportunity to operate regulated healthcare facilities in North Carolina. And usually the one that doesn't get it files a lawsuit. And those are the cases we hear. There are three of us, including, including myself, that hears them. They can take three to four weeks. They involve about nine attorneys, tens of thousands of pages of documents, average decision, 50 to 80 pages. And those cases, of course, go directly to the court of appeals. So having that kind of administrative expertise is one of the reasons that I'm running for this job. Now, on the other side of the coin, if you are on one of our toll roads and you don't like your quick pass bill, you can appeal that to the administrative hearings. We hear about a hundred different kinds of cases. rate

Peter Pappas: Why wouldn't you like your quick path, Bill?

Michael Byrne: Well, people feel they've been overcharged or that it wasn't me or and sometimes I I've seen them I've never personally done one myself. some

Peter Pappas: Okay.

Michael Byrne: of our other judges do them, but people have that right. we hear obviously state personnel, which is my background, we hear all those. We hear environmental penalty cases. So when a river is polluted and there's a penalty, that's administrative law. When And a police officer is wrongly dismissed, that's the Ministry of Law. And a Ministry of Law really affects every person in this state in one way or another. And what we provide is again a group of experienced, fair, independent judges who hear those disputes and provide due process for everybody involved. And I'm I'm very proud of that role.

Peter Pappas: So fancy paint drying is what we're gonna talk about. But yeah, I got

Michael Byrne: Fancy paintra, yes.

Peter Pappas: you. Okay, okay, okay. So a fair judge for everyone is your platform. So fair to whom? And when the two sides are a citizen and a state agency, you've had decisions affirmed. How many of your decisions were appealed and how many were reversed?

Michael Byrne: Right, so I've issued, I think, just over 400, our opinions are called decisions. just over I think four four hundred since I became administrative law judge almost six and a half years ago. Of those, eleven have been reviewed by the Court of Appeals. I've actually never been reversed, which is something I'm rather proud of. Now I had some help with that. In many cases, they were attorneys defending my decision, and I'm grateful for that assistance. But I I was speaking to a group in Charlotte the other day and I was asked about that. what it means. And I said, well, at the end of the day, you sort of can't get better than perfect. I think it's a a a good gauge of how well a judge does his or her job is what happens to his or her decisions when they go up to the higher court. And I've been fortunate enough to never have been found to commit reversible error. A twelfth case, I guess, was a case called Farm Bureau. And it involved DEQ attaching conditions to general agricultural permits, primarily doing with hog farms. And I decided that that was an illegal exercise that required, you know, rule making, which is way too complicated to get in. You talked about putting their putting everybody to sleep, yeah.

Peter Pappas: So pretty much the the a the agency was overstepping what you and the administrative law felt was what they were they were allowed to do. Okay.

Michael Byrne: Right. And correct. And the Supreme Court affirmed my decision in that case. So technically

Peter Pappas: Okay. See,

Michael Byrne: it's twelve.

Peter Pappas: it does sound boring, but it's like somebody's gotta be watching the minding the store essentially is what it sounds like to me, and you mind the administrative store. I

Michael Byrne: Yeah, there's

Peter Pappas: mean

Michael Byrne: there's a Latin phrase that I used to know and it translates to who watches the watchers.

Peter Pappas: Okay.

Michael Byrne: and I wish I could remember it because it sounds kind of cool in Latin, but

Peter Pappas: Mm-hmm.

Michael Byrne: but that's what it comes down to. Now but the other Peter, the other side of the coin is that agencies deserve fairness and due process too.

Peter Pappas: Mm-hmm.

Michael Byrne: This this only works if both sides know they're here appearing before someone who is impartial. Who doesn't prejudge either side and is going to give everybody a fair shake? Because if one side or another thinks going in or has reason to think going in that they're not going to get a fair shake, the whole system doesn't work. And in my former career as a litigation attorney, my opponents, so to speak, were state agencies. So I tend to sort of bend over backwards to provide not only fairness, but there's also the appearance of fairness. If you've been doing this for a while, you can appear in front of judges who are awesomely fair, but they don't seem like it. You know, they're irascible or you know, some and and I always want people to know going in that they're welcome, that they're going to be treated fairly, and their case is going to get a fair hearing. And that's sort of the origin of that saying. A fair

Peter Pappas: Okay.

Michael Byrne: judge, period, for everyone. And I would continue that of course on the

Peter Pappas: So you just mentioned something and that's off of my list of questions here, but I had Justice Earl's last week. she's running for re-election, and I was speaking about her opponent kind of hitting her former life career. Like the what she did to make a living back in the day, she was a defense attorney. But a lot of times the state was her defendant because she was essentially suing the state. And you just mentioned that, you know, the state could be a defendant quite a bit in your former profession, I mean your former private practice, I mean. So has your opponent hit you on along those lines and said, Hey, he used to be a defense attorney, blah, blah, blah. I mean, have you seen many much activity about that?

Michael Byrne: No, he is he is not. And you

Peter Pappas: Okay.

Michael Byrne: know, I actually appeared in front of him, you know, multiple times. And he's affirmed and

Peter Pappas: Okay. E every race is different.

Michael Byrne: he's affirmed he's affirmed my decisions. So i

Peter Pappas: Okay, okay.

Michael Byrne: you know, i i if I'm hearing anything from I don't want to say like agency folks, but people who are in that system, it's that they tend to want someone who has the background and experience and a demonstrated record of treating agencies fairly. And just knowing the law. Y you know, I I I tend to think personally, Peter, that district court judges, for example, are the backbone of our judicial system. They are where it's almost everybody's first encounter with the legal system

Peter Pappas: Right.

Michael Byrne: and they're great. I serve a different role that I think is i is equally important. And that's a role that again sometimes can be very, very complex. And we have no former Ministry of Law judge in the court of appeals right now. None.

Peter Pappas: Okay. Okay.

Michael Byrne: So when those cases go up there, I I think that they would favor, hopefully, at least according to what I've heard, they want someone up there who knows that law, who has a record of treating everybody fairly and record of getting those administrative decisions right.

Peter Pappas: Right, right. Well, I that was more of a j I think just as a citizen observing these elections, sometimes I just wonder I'm like, How how deep do you want to hit your opponent? At a certain point they all had careers and you know, sometimes I'd I

Michael Byrne: Well,

Peter Pappas: don't know.

Michael Byrne: th that's an interesting question. You know, I've s I think I said during the primary, I said at the outset of this, that if you have to say something negative about your opponent in a judicial race, then in a very important sense you've already lost. my opponent is, I think, at least gained some intrinsic benefit from some out-of-state left-wing groups. They they're not

Peter Pappas: Mm-hmm.

Michael Byrne: They're they're attacking me less than they're attacking other people. I guess they're coming up blank with things to find. And I'm a bit troubled that he hasn't spoken out on that because if somebody was using that mechanism to attack him on my side, I would say stop it. I mean, I literally would just say stop it.

Peter Pappas: Yeah. And and by law, I mean you've got these PACs and these other things that are not allowed to be directed by the candidate. So people with partisan aspirations, I guess, can they can say whatever the heck they want. It doesn't mean it comes from the candidate. I just it just gets old to me as a citizen watching this stuff. It's like just like the Senate confirmation thing. You're not gonna answer. You can't answer certain things. And Why are we beating up people that had to work for a living and they happen to have a really bad client or somebody you perceive as a bad client? Everybody needs it is it gets representation regardless of whether you like them or not. Absolutely. Absolutely.

Michael Byrne: No you you're you're both right. And and but what I would say about this is that yes, those third parties can say what they want, but if they're attempting to say it on my behalf and it's negative, I'm gonna speak up.

Peter Pappas: Okay.

Michael Byrne: And my opponent has not. And the only other thing I'd say about him that I think is w i is is a legitimate issue is that he cannot serve A full term on the court if he is re-elected.

Peter Pappas: Because

Michael Byrne: Because of his age, Laura, the mandatory retirement age for North Carolina judges used to be 72. My opponent will turn 70 years old on November 4th. They recently raised that law to 76. Well, as we b all know, the court appeals is an eight-year term. So if if my opponent is re-elected, He will be required to resign. I think the month, don't quote me on this, I think the month he turns 76, that would be the governor.

Peter Pappas: And who gets to appoint him if when the p Huh.

Michael Byrne: So you you essentially are his argument is essentially saying, elect me and then elect some other unidentified person two years

Peter Pappas: Right.

Michael Byrne: later, and that's that's fine. But I think it's something that people making their decision in this race should know about. That in essence, he is running for a job that legally he cannot finish. In my case, I'm 59, so I could serve not only an eight-year term, but a second eight-year term if I'm fortunate enough to be elected and then re-elected. But in

Peter Pappas: Right. Well

Michael Byrne: terms of his general, you know, I'm just not gonna say negative things about him. That's just not how I operate, because as I've said before, and I think Peter, you've heard me say it, we're not running for dog catcher here. It's the second highest court in the state. We need to act

Peter Pappas: Right.

Michael Byrne: like that.

Peter Pappas: Absolutely. And I agree with that and I appreciate that. because there's a lot of decorum I think we've lost in these elections and in life. Well in life, yeah, wherever, but

Michael Byrne: yeah.

Peter Pappas: still, you know, it it just doesn't necessitate it. You're try you know, you look, first of all, attorney judges and attorneys, Mr. Byrne, we like you being here, but you're not the most fun guest. What are you trying to say? Well, be he knows why, because there's certain things we can't really talk about, because he's got the ethical standards and things to comply to. I mean, you can't go out there just trash talking another opponent. This is not this is not that. You have to maintain a level

Michael Byrne: No, you're you're right.

Peter Pappas: of decorum and respect and it's lost on a lot of people.

Michael Byrne: But let's mean let's go back even a little further. You know, I I was fortunate enough to litigate more than twenty cases in court appeals individually as an attorney, and

Peter Pappas: Mm-hmm.

Michael Byrne: appeared in many others as a friend of the court for some of the groups that have endorsed me. You know, as as you may know, I'm the only judicial candidate from either party in this election. It's endorsed by North Klein Fraternal Order Police,

Peter Pappas: Mm-hmm.

Michael Byrne: North Klein Police Benevolent Association, and NAPO, which is a national organization representing 350,000 officers. So and one of the reasons they did that was because I represented them my capacity in essence as an employment lawyer.

Peter Pappas: Mm-hmm.

Michael Byrne: In all those cases though that I was fortunate enough to appear in on the appellate level, I never once looked across the court of appeals or Supreme Court courtroom and called my opponent names.

Peter Pappas: Right.

Michael Byrne: I I never did it in a trial either. I might take issue with what they said, but you know, so it's really not anything but a a continuance of of what I've been doing for thirty years.

Peter Pappas: Right.

Michael Byrne: You know, our profession done properly is based on courtesy. And y we constantly see people when I came in the profession, I heard all the lawyers say, Well, all the courtesy's gone. Now I'm one of those lawyers and I talk about the courtesy being gone. and I try to encourage younger lawyers who appear in front of me to be courteous. I mean, a very

Peter Pappas: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Michael Byrne: small example. When I was a young lawyer, we would do, we were all on the court appointed list. And we would come over and do district court, get me little cases, communicating

Peter Pappas: Mm-hmm.

Michael Byrne: threats. And w we'd go over there twice a week. And at lunchtime, the district attorney, the attorneys, the judge, and the bailiff would all go to lunch. And

Peter Pappas: Together.

Michael Byrne: it was a r together. Yeah. And it was a r Laura, it was a really cool thing.

Peter Pappas: Mm-hmm.

Michael Byrne: And if you suggested that today. you somebody look at you like you had two heads and and on on several occasions though when there's been an older lawyer involved in the case, I've gotten the younger lawyer and said, at lunch, the three of us are going to lunch together. And sometimes the younger lawyer will be like, Well, I need to talk to my client. I'm like, but you don't.

Peter Pappas: Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Michael Byrne: You need to go to lunch with us. You need to understand about you know camaraderie for lack of a better word.

Peter Pappas: Yeah.

Michael Byrne: And I'll give you time to talk to your client when you get back.

Peter Pappas: At the end of the day the clients go away. The clients go away and you all are still working in the same courthouse. Absolutely.

Michael Byrne: We're all working toward the same goal, which is justice. And I just happen to think that courtesy and what word am I looking for? It's not so much com the idea that it's a profession, that it's a a group of professionals and we can be adversaries, but we can treat each other courteously. And that's something that's a really big deal to me.

Peter Pappas: It has. And you know, we we really do get what we allow. And we've allowed certain attitudes and behaviors to enter certain spaces that they do not belong. maybe we can thank television for teaching these young lawyers that like it's gonna be like practicing suits law or you know, what was the one with Shatner on it? LA law. Not LA law. No, that's r Boston legal.

Michael Byrne: I I I've never was it Yeah, Boston legal maybe? I never I never saw it, but let me let me give you a real life North Carolina example that that

Peter Pappas: Okay.

Michael Byrne: really will illustrate this. So we used to have in some places we still do something called calendar call on Mondays. And that's when the judge is up there and all the attorneys are in court, usually just some lawyers. And the judge goes over we're gonna hear this case at this time, this case at this time. And sometimes if you had a judge in the Bench with a sense of humor, it could be uproariously funny and it was fun.

Peter Pappas: Okay.

Michael Byrne: But what it gave you the opportunity to do as a younger lawyer is to see how older lawyers interacted with each other and with

Peter Pappas: Mm-hmm.

Michael Byrne: the bar. And this is a profession where some extent you learn by doing. Well, in some of these counties, countercol no longer exists. It's doing something like this. And that's great. But An opportunity for watching that interaction, watching how the experienced lawyers work with each other is lost. I mean, is that new system more efficient? Absolutely. But again, this is a profession where I think people learn by doing, by watching, by observing, by internalizing. You know, you asked about the people who remind judicial models, and I gave you one, but there's an important other side to that. There were many judges who I appeared in front of in my career who would do something, and I would say, you know, if I were to become a judge, I'm never doing that, whatever that is.

Peter Pappas: Okay. Well sure.

Michael Byrne: So you can learn things from people who aren't doing it maybe the best way, as

Peter Pappas: Mm-hmm.

Michael Byrne: you can from the good ones, because in a job like this, whether it's on the court of appeals, OAH, Superior Court, it's very easy to tear people down.

Peter Pappas: Mm-hmm.

Michael Byrne: You can tear young lawyers down, you can tear litigants down. I try to take the opposite tack and try to encourage them and build them up. and I just think that that's something that is my

Peter Pappas: Yeah. Well

Michael Byrne: charge and it's again it's something I take very, very seriously.

Peter Pappas: We have to be a certain age to realize how smart our parents were. And just like I think you need to be a certain part of your career to figure out how how smart your elder statesman like people should, you know, were. So let's move to local just for a moment. So Carbon County deals with state agencies constantly, DEQ on PFAS, let's see DHHS on Medicaid, the DMV. When a family here fights a state agency and loses, what's their path and how long does it take? We've had a lot of PFAS litigation in this count county, without commenting on any case, how should a court weigh science it isn't trained in?

Michael Byrne: So there's a wide variety of appeal avenues that can be taken. it would take another 30 minutes to explain them. You know, roughly, for example, we don't hear DMV hearings. there are a couple of proposals over the years that we did. but as of now we don't. And the

Peter Pappas: Okay.

Michael Byrne: the thing to remember is that in all of the hearings like this, just like trials in Superior Court or District Court. know, we use the same rules of evidence, largely. We use the same procedural rules, largely. and at some level you have what's called a record making or fact-fighting hearing. It could be district court, superior court, OAH, whatever. Appellate courts don't find facts. So in other words, the court appeals, when they hear an appeal of my case, if I decide a car was red. They would not issue an opinion saying, you know, Byrne was wrong. That car was actually blue. What they would do, though, is they would examine the evidence on which I found that the car was red and say there was sufficient evidence for Byrne to find that, or there wasn't. And if there wasn't, they'd send it back and said, hey, Byrne, do a better job. And that's a sort of really overlooked area that helps qualify me for the court of appeals because.

Peter Pappas: Mm-hmm.

Michael Byrne: Unlike a lot of courts where the majority involve jury trials, I am both fact-finder and law finder. So I have to find the facts.

Peter Pappas: Okay.

Michael Byrne: And to find facts, I have to find facts that are backed up by evidence to withstand scrutiny and appeal. Well, having done that in over 400 decisions and countless ones where I drafted decisions for judges before, that's given me, I think, an almost unique ability, experience, certainly, to understand. where the evidence supports a certain fact and then on the court appeals to be able to decide whether that fact's supported by evidence or not. That's

Peter Pappas: Okay.

Michael Byrne: one of those really sort of geeky overlooked levels of the court of appeals, but it's a critical skill because that's the second, you know, they f they they look for error of law absolutely, but they have to scrutinize the facts and say, you know, is your Cumberland County case whoever heard that case, whether it's a hearing officer, judge, doesn't matter. Did that judge find facts that are adequately supported by the evidence? And that is just as important as getting the law.

Peter Pappas: Okay. So you're running against a sitting court of appeals judge with about eleven years on that bench. you've never sat on an appellate court, so why should a voter trade that experience for you?

Michael Byrne: Well, I'd respectfully point out that neither did he before he got on the bench. let's compare the initial experience, just

Peter Pappas: Okay.

Michael Byrne: to look at the background. my opponent is running an ad right now, and he says he protected our communities as a superior court judge. And that's very impressive, particularly given the time frame, because his ad does not reveal that he served as superior court judge for all of six months before

Peter Pappas: That long.

Michael Byrne: being appointed to the Court of Appeals. It was March to August 2007. I've been a sitting judge for almost six and a half years. So no matter what kind of math you throw at it, you know, 76 months versus six months, 15.2 times experience, I have a vastly greater amount of trial experience than my opponent did at the time

Peter Pappas: Okay.

Michael Byrne: he was appointed to the court appeals. That's one thing. The second thing is that I have been involved with the Court of Appeals as an attorney or judge since the 1990s. It is very rare to have an attorney who has more than 20 cases as a litigator in the Court of Appeals under his belt, in addition to all the times I've been affirmed. So, you know, looking looking at the collective experience quotient, so to speak. I bring more than 30 years of directly applicable trial, appellate, and judicial experience to this position. It is a vastly greater amount of experience than my opponent had before he was apported to the bench. So that's the argument I would make. So I I would look at it probably here's the best way, Peter. It's football season. And I went to NC State and football season rarely goes well for us, but that doesn't matter. But

Peter Pappas: That's another show entirely, sir. Yes.

Michael Byrne: The court yeah, that is another show. But the core appeals in its own way, and I don't mean to suggest they're a game, they're not, and their decisions are much more important than touchdowns and field goals.

Peter Pappas: Mm-hmm.

Michael Byrne: The core appeals is a team too. It's fifteen people. And you as the citizens are the owners. Well you have someone who's on the team right now, and the argument seems to be, I'm on the team, you need to keep me on the team. Well, if that would argument worked, if if if on the team means never make a change. Then Terry Bradshaw would still be the quarterback of the Pittsburgh Steelers, and Roger Stauback would still be quarterback of the Dallas Cowboys. And as good as they were in the day, I don't think any serious person would buy that argument. Sometimes, in this case, a player comes along, not an untested rookie, but some with very, very significant applicable experience, and also unique experience, because remember, we touched on the fact that I have that administrative law experience that right now simply isn't there. So you have. unique experience that adds to the team, makes the team stronger, and who in my case, unlike my opponent who has to retire from the team in six years, I can continue serving that team and serving the state for 16 years to come. So the the question for the voters is do you make the change? Or do you let that player sit? And I think the case is pretty compelling for making the change. Not because my opponent is a bad guy doing a bad job, But I bec I have have more experience than he had, significantly more. And I also have experience in an area where the court appeals is not, you know, graced with that experience and it will help them be more efficient and a better group to implement the law.

Peter Pappas: Okay. Well, I I personally and I think Laura might share this with me. I the whole appointment of judges and like you're voting for somebody and then you're basically voting for an appointment with this particular case, but we have that also locally too here. Yeah.

Michael Byrne: Well, in fairness I was appointed to my job, so you know.

Peter Pappas: Well, okay, well then I guess that d that throws out my point. Never mind. I guess we're gonna have to shut up about that then. I I don't know. I I just really think You know, the appointment is kind of a backdoor way in sometimes. If you're running for office and you know you can't compete for the entire time, there's a difference in being appointed because something happens to somebody and because you just want to s take the seat. All right. I'll I'll just leave that whole line alone.

Michael Byrne: Yeah, I mean that's yeah, Laura, that's that's the thing. It's like okay. I would not personally run for a job I couldn't finish. I'm not saying he doesn't have a right to run. He has the perfect right to run.

Peter Pappas: Mm-hmm.

Michael Byrne: but I think that's it's it's just another factor that people need to know about when they're making their decision. And you know, I I don't say that I I don't see that as negative. I simply say that as an operative fact that needs to be considered.

Peter Pappas: So in the next show we do about the NC State football, I'm gonna also bring up filing requirements for judges so that they can't file unless they can do the full term if they win. So we'll just talk about that on another show. How about that? So last one, and I'm gonna let you go. if somebody watching agrees with me on about everything, maybe they think you're wrong on something. I doubt they will. But one's the one thing you'd want them to take out of this last half hour we spent together.

Michael Byrne: Well, I just want them to know that that you know in my job as a lawyer, you know, I didn't represent rich people or big corporations. I represented state employees, I represented police, so I basically was in the great position to help the people who make our state work and to keep our families safe. And I I think, you know, I I'm not gonna say it's like those people need a voice, you know, they have a voice. But I'm proud of my career helping people who sometimes don't get the help they need. And you know, at at the heart of that process is the notion that everybody deserves their fair day in court. And everybody deserves, you know, due process, which at the end of the day is fairness. I'm proud of my record of fairness. I'm proud of my record of getting the law right. But at the end of the day, the emotion I feel more than anything else is humility. And I'll share a story that I think you both can appreciate. That during the primary, I was out at a event in Elkin. And a lady came up to me and she said, Judge Byrne, I voted for you. And I took a picture of my ballot to prove it. And yeah. And and

Peter Pappas: no.

Michael Byrne: I'm not perhaps the most weepy emotional guy, but you know, I he almost wanted to burst into tears and say, and and I said, I said, ma'am, can I can I just give you a hug? And I did, and I was very grateful for that. and yes, I didn't have the heart to say that what she'd done was illegal. Because sometimes sometimes there's something greater than that.

Peter Pappas: Yeah.

Michael Byrne: A a vote is one of the greatest gifts that a citizen can give. And I was so humbled, and still am humbled, by the fact that over three and eighteen thousand North Carolinians voted for me during the primary, and others far more hopefully will vote for me this time around. and and that is my ultimate emotion and feeling that that that I'm just so grateful for people. who have an interest in this process, including the two of you. And if I'm elected, I will try to bring that sense of humility to the job every single day that I'm honored to do it.

Peter Pappas: Okay, well, Judge Byrne, thank you. you know, you came into the room. you pretty much knew these hosts were gonna get along with you. We've been here before, but you did answer every question and not everybody does do that, so we appreciate that. So where do people go to find you for your campaign website, stuff like that?

Michael Byrne: So I'm very bad at remembering to mention that, so thank you for putting that up.

Peter Pappas: Yeah.

Michael Byrne: So I I've had my last name for 59 years and it's very hard to spell, so we decide to do it's MB, my initials, the number four, nc.com.

Peter Pappas: Okay.

Michael Byrne: And what I would simply suggest that people do is you know, look at my website, look at my opponent's website, and see how I talk about what I've actually done. Because

Peter Pappas: Mm-hmm.

Michael Byrne: people need to know what I've actually done. And we go to great lengths on the website to talk about the cases I've done, to talk about the cases that I've done that were cited and affirmed. Because

Peter Pappas: Mm-hmm.

Michael Byrne: at the end of the day, people are making the choice of doing a highly complex technical and ultimately a political job. and I just want people to be able to review my qualifications and experience to do that job the best that I can. So thank you for that.

Peter Pappas: Okay. Well, folks, go look it up yourself. That's kind of the point. You know what Google is for. So Judge Byrne, the door is open. Come back after November third and tell us what the voters taught you. Hopefully they taught you big W for the night. But to everybody watching, you can go to the Carolina Cabinet dot com for all of our shows and links. And early voting does start October fifteenth, and I'm gonna do my damnedest to have all these episodes out tomorrow. So with

Michael Byrne: Well

Peter Pappas: that. Thank you for joining us this evening and good luck.

Michael Byrne: Thank you all very much and have a great night.

Peter Pappas: You too.