Thomas Wright's lawyers have filed papers in Wake County Superior Court to get his seat back.

Irving Joyner argued that the state House of Representatives' vote to expel Wright was punishment without a trial.

He also argued that current House members didn't have standing to expel Wright because the allegations, if true, occurred in a previous legislative session.

Joyner asked Judge Paul Ridgeway to schedule a hearing immediately.

Three weeks ago, Ridgeway declined to block the House ethics committee from hearing the Wright case, saying it was not his job to interfere with the legislature. (AP) 

A special N.C. House committee investigating Rep. Thomas Wright rejected an argument by Wright's attorneys Monday that they don't have jurisdiction over his ethics case.

Irving Joyner, one of Wright's attorneys and an N.C. Central law professor, told the six-member, bipartisan committee that the state constitution does not expressly give the General Assembly the right to discipline or remove members, David Ingram reports.

As a result, Joyner said, neither the committee nor the full House has authority to do so.

"Even if a legislator walked in here and shot someone dead right here, in front of everyone on the World Wide Web, this body would not have the authority to do that," Joyner said.

The only way for a legislator to be removed by force, he added, is for voters to choose someone else to represent them in the next scheduled election.

Rep. Rick Glazier, the committee's chair and a Fayetteville Democrat, rejected that argument and denied Joyner's motion to dismiss the eight ethics charges against Wright.

State Rep. Thomas Wright, making his first appearance in court since his Dec. 10 indictment on six felony charges, told a judge Monday he has hired an attorney.

Wright, a Wilmington Democrat, said he has hired Douglas Harris of Greensboro. Wright had a different attorney in May when the State Board of Elections urged charges against him for his handling of campaign money, David Ingram reports.

The eight-term legislator declined to comment as he left the Wake County courthouse with his wife and N.C. Central law professor Irving Joyner, who represented Wright during a 10-minute court appearance. Joyner said Harris could not make court Monday because he was in a trial.

Judge Donald Stephens of Wake Superior Court ordered Harris to appear Friday morning.

"I want a lawyer here to stand before me and tell me he represents Mr. Wright," Stephens said. "We need to get past this point and then move on."

Prosecutors turned over to Wright two boxes of documents that investigators have gathered in their year-long probe.

Wright, 52, is scheduled in court again Feb. 4. He faces five charges of obtaining property by false pretenses and one charge of obstruction of justice in connection with allegations that he swindled $350,000 out of banks, corporations and campaign contributors.

Rep. Thomas Wright's woes have extended back to 1898.

The Wilmington Democrat's campaign finance problems have hurt plans to acknowledge the race riots and provide ways to compensate the heirs of its victims.

Wright filed 10 bills on the issue this session, but only one has been voted on. That was the bill simply acknowledging the riots happened, and it's not been approved by the Senate yet.

After the State Board of Elections said Wright failed to report more than $220,000 in campaign contributions in recent years, the fate of the bills became uncertain.

Since 2000, Wright had headed a 13-member commission that looked into the riots.

"I had left it up to Rep. Wright to guide us," said Irving Joyner, a law professor at N.C. Central University and the commission's vice chairman. "Now the viability of that strategy is in question." (N&O)