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Cooper appoints new Gaston County Superior Court judge
Gaston County s newest Superior Court judge may have a similar sounding name.
“Jess Caldwell has spent his legal career serving the people of Gaston County,” Cooper said in making the announcement Friday. “I am confident that he will be a great asset to the bench.”
Caldwell is the chief juvenile public defender for Gaston County. Previously, he was the assistant public defender in Gastonia. He is also a guest lecturer at Johnson C. Smith University.
Caldwell earned his bachelor of arts degree at UNC Chapel Hill and his law degree at Charleston School of Law.
Jesse Caldwell III served 28 years as a Superior Court judge in Gaston County before he reached the mandatory retirement age of 72 last month. On Friday, Gov. Roy Cooper appointed Caldwell's son, Jesse Caldwell IV, to fill the vacant seat.
Gaston County judge retires after long career
Underneath the solemn black robe of a Superior Court judge, Jesse Caldwell was well known for favoring flashy attire over the traditional suit of courtroom arbitrator. Sammy Davis had this song, I Gotta Be Me, said Caldwell, while wearing a multi-colored pinstriped yellow seersucker suit and bowtie, with an extra splash of color from a reddish handkerchief in his pocket. Well, I gotta be me. I have a flamboyant personality and I like to show it off through my clothes. And I m telling you, you have to look long and hard to find clothes like this.
A man sentenced to life in prison for killing a 90-year-old World War II veteran from Gaston County lost a chance to argue on appeal that his conviction was based on the trial judge coercing a verdict from the jury.
A Gaston County jury convicted Brian Thad Carver of first-degree murder in August 2018 in the death of Ray Jackson a year earlier. The conviction carried a mandatory sentence of life in prison without parole for Carver, now 47.
But while jury members deliberated the case, twice they reported to Superior Court Judge Jesse Caldwell of being deadlocked on a decision regarding the first-degree murder charge.