Judge who lost license resigns
Mandy Locke, Staff Writer
An embattled District Court judge decided to resign Wednesday rather than continue to be paid for a job he couldn't do.
James Ethridge has given up his job, said his attorney, Alan Schneider. The move came two days after state officials admitted they didn't know how to remove him from the bench even though the N.C. State Bar has stripped him of his law license.
Ethridge, who was elected judge in Johnston, Harnett and Lee counties in 2004, will officially step down Tuesday, he wrote in a letter to be delivered to the governor this week.
"James made this decision because it was the right thing to do in light of the controversy," Schneider said Wednesday night. "It was not because of the pressure."
Judges can't hold court without a law license. Ethridge lost his license in October after the State Bar decided he had been dishonest and deceitful as a lawyer in 2001 when he took the home and life savings of a senile woman, then 69 years old.
http://www.newsobserver.com/114/story/531187.html