How do judges of the Court of Appeals of North Carolina reach the bench?

The court's current selection method is partisan election.

Court of Appeals of North Carolina / Joined 2009 / Served to 2014

Samuel James Ervin IV

Judge, Court of Appeals of North Carolina

Samuel James Ervin IV was a Judge of the Court of Appeals of North Carolina, who joined the court in 2009. Opinions & record ↓ Sources ↓

Born: 1955 · age 71
Tenure: 2009–2014 · 5 yrs

Judicial service

Year	Court	Appointed by	Vote
2009	Court of Appeals of North Carolina	–	–

Education

Davidson College
Harvard University

Judicial Record

In our data, Ervin authored 206 published opinions for the court (2009–2014), plus 7 dissents and 9 concurrences. Most cited: Hamilton v. MORTGAGE INFORMATION SERVICES, INC. (57 citations).

Published, precedential opinions from the CourtListener corpus. Counts and rankings are objective and recomputable: how we count. We describe the record, not the judge. 100 of these were attributed to Ervin by a unique court-, date-, and surname-match against our roster (marked ), because CourtListener recorded no author for them. Each links to the official text to verify. How we match.

Selected opinions

Year	Case	Citation	Cited
2011	Hamilton v. MORTGAGE INFORMATION SERVICES, INC.	711 S.E.2d 185	57
2009	State v. Bohler	681 S.E.2d 801	54
2011	Williams v. Peabody· Concurrence†	217 N.C. App. 1	43
2009	Sabates v. Sabates	681 S.E.2d 788	41
2009	In re M.D., N.D.†	200 N.C. App. 35	40
2012	Austin Maintenance & Construction, Inc. v. Crowder Construction Co.†	224 N.C. App. 401	39
2010	Munger v. State	689 S.E.2d 230	36
2010	Harbour Point Homeowners'assoc., Inc. Ex Rel. Bd. of Dir. v. Djf Enterprises	697 S.E.2d 439	35
2010	Ellison v. Alexander	700 S.E.2d 102	34
2009	Guyton v. FM LENDING SERVICES, INC.	681 S.E.2d 465	33
2012	State v. Harris	724 S.E.2d 633	31
2010	State v. Maready· Concurrence†	695 S.E.2d 771	31
2014	Trillium Ridge Condominium Ass'n v. Trillium Links & Village, LLC†	236 N.C. App. 478	30
2009	Fischer Investment Capital, Inc. v. Catawba Development Corp.	689 S.E.2d 143	25
2010	Bailey & Associates, Inc. v. Wilmington Board of Adjustment	689 S.E.2d 576	24

Showing the 15 most-cited of 222 authored opinions in our data. “Cited” is inbound citations across the CourtListener corpus. Case links open the ruling’s full text (CourtListener) or its page here; read the methodology and verify against the primary source.

Questions & answers

How do judges of the Court of Appeals of North Carolina reach the bench?: The court's current selection method is partisan election.
Which court was Samuel James Ervin IV on?: Samuel James Ervin IV was a Judge of the Court of Appeals of North Carolina.

Sources

Each fact on this page traces to a primary public record.

How we source & reconcile data → Data & Sources

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5 years on the Court of Appeals of North Carolina. Data as of 2026-03-31. Informational only; verify against the primary source before relying. Not a consumer report (FCRA).