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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) 

Rep. Thomas Wright will be starting March Madness Thursday.

The Wilmington Democrat heads into a face-off with Reps. Rick Glazier and Paul Stam, both No. 1 seeds in the Democratic and Republican conferences.

The odds are stacked against Wright, especially now that former coach Jim Black has left his side.

Still, the game's not over until it's over. One of Wright's top players, N.C. Central star Irv Joyner, told the Wilmington Star-News that he hopes to challenge the legislature in a rematch before the state Supreme Court.

He also tried to work the refs a little in advance of the Big Dance:

"This body has already determined that they want him out of there," Joyner said. "I'm of the opinion that once they vote to do that, it is going to be final unless the (N.C.) Supreme Court invalidates what they did."

Now that is what we call a wild card.

A state House panel is poised to make a judgment about whether Rep. Thomas Wright violated ethics rules.

The panel finished hearing evidence Thursday from two special prosecutors who say that Wright, a Wilmington Democrat, mishandled almost $350,000 from his campaign, a charity and three corporations, David Ingram reports.

Wright's attorneys declined to present evidence, after previously suggesting that doing so would put Wright at a disadvantage is a possible criminal trial.

In his closing argument, Senior Deputy Attorney General William Hart argued that Wright had committed fraud and violated ethical rules that state legislators are bound to uphold.

"This is a solemn and sad occasion. I don't believe there’s anyone who wants to be here today, doing what we're doing," Hart said. "None of us would like to believe that a member of the House had done the things that are set forth in these charges."

Irving Joyner, an attorney for Wright, said that the evidence presented is "murky, confusing and disconnected." He criticized the process as biased because the panel that will judge whether he violated ethics rules is the same panel that brought charges against him.

"So is this fair and impartial?" Joyner asked. "Not in America. Not in North Carolina. Maybe in some foreign land, it would be. But not here."

The six-member, bipartisan panel could vote this afternoon on whether Wright violated ethics rules. If it votes that he did, it would then consider recommending a punishment to the full House.

State Rep. Thomas Wright accepted more than $5,000 in cash contributions for his political campaigns without disclosing any of it on state forms, according to testimony Thursday.

The contributions are in addition to almost $350,000 in campaign, charitable and corporate money that investigators say Wright handled improperly or used for personal expenses, David Ingram reports.

Political candidates in North Carolina are allowed to accept cash contributions of up to $50, but they must disclose them in filings with the State Board of Elections or a local elections office.

Kim Strach, the state board's lead investigator, testified before a House panel that Wright disclosed none of the cash contributions he has received since 2000. Her staff discovered the contributions when they examined records of Wright's five bank accounts.

"There are cash contributions" in the records, Strach said. But, she added, "There are no cash contributions disclosed on the reports."

More after the jump.

State Rep. Thomas Wright told two agents with the State Bureau of Investigation that he pocketed $8,900 intended for a charitable foundation he was starting, according to testimony Wednesday.

SBI Special Agent-in-Charge Johnnie Umphlet testified before a House panel about two interviews that he and another agent conducted with Wright in September and October, David Ingram reports.

During those interviews, they asked Wright what he did with three corporate checks made out to the Community's Health Foundation.

"He advised that he deposited those checks into his personal bank account," Umphlet testified, "as a payment for his services in trying to get the foundation started, that he had done a lot of work and put
in a lot of hours trying to get the foundation started, and had put in a lot of sweat equity."

Wright told the agents he did not have a log of his work, but that he had made phone calls, traveled and incurred other expenses, Umphlet said.

One of Wright's attorneys, Irving Joyner, questioned the authenticity of the checks and of the letters bearing Wright's name that requested the donations. He also asked Umphlet about his process for taking and transcribing notes.

Joyner attempted to ask Umphlet about a "$50,000 slush fund" that he said Wright might have had access to. Senior Deputy Attorney General William Hart, a lawyer for the House panel, objected to the question, and Rep. Rick Glazier, a Fayetteville Democrat and the panel's chairman, ruled that the question was not relevant.

A Wake County judge Thursday refused to block the General Assembly from hearing ethics charges against state Rep. Thomas Wright next week and potentially expelling him from the House of Representatives.

Superior Court Judge Paul Ridgeway refused Wright's request for a temporary restraining order against the special House committee hearing the ethics case, Mark Johnson reports.

The judge ruled that it would be an "encroachment" and "intrusion" for the court to interfere with the House's disciplining of one of its own members.

"The court must presume the folks on Jones Street (the Legislative Building) are fully capable of doing their job in accordance with the law," Ridgeway said from the bench.

Wright's lawyer, N.C. Central law professor Irv Joyner, said he and Wright will consider an appeal. Rep. Rick Glazier, co-chair of the special House committee, said the judge gave the request "full and fair consideration."

Jack Betts points out another Wilmington 10 connection.

In a post on This Old State, the Charlotte Observer editor writes that Rep. Thomas Wright's attorney has a connection to Wright's older brother's conviction in a politically charged case from the 1970s.

And by the way: Yes, Prof. Joyner is the same lawyer who did much of the work 30 years ago on the case of the Wilmington 10, where he represented Rep. Wright’s brother Joe, who was falsely accused and sent to prison on charges of firebombing a grocery store in Wilmington in 1971. Courts later overturned his conviction.

Wright has said that the emotional effects of the case on his family were "horrendous." 

Betts adds that Joyner was also a vice chairman of the Wilmington Race Riot Commission, which looked into the legislature and state newspaper's role in a racially motivated 1898 coup.

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)