Blind Justice

Judge Craig B. Brown (Ret.) has been a fixture in the North Carolina justice system since the 1970s. Soon after he passed the bar in 1976, he came down with the first symptoms of the chronic illness, Behçet's Syndrome and by 1992, he was legally blind. He was appointed to the Bench in 1996 and served as a judge during a tumultuous period in the Durham, North Carolina area He was judicially involved in the infamous Duke Lacrosse case and the murders of Eve Carson and Abhijit Mahato. Judge Brown tells of his time on the Bench and gives us insight into the momentous times of this twenty-first century.

Judge Brown received his B.A. in Political Science from the University of Chapel Hill in 1979 and his Juris Doctor Degree from the North Carolina School of Law in 1983. He received his Master's Degree in Public Policy from Duke University the same year. Most of Judge Brown's legal career was spent in Durham, North Carolina, which is a progressive, colorful, community. It is located in the central Piedmont section of North Carolina and is the home of Research Triangle Park, Duke University and North Carolina Central University. The city's nickname is "The Bull City", named for an early tobacco product called Bull Durham. Durham and surrounding Durham County figured prominently in early civil rights agitation and, today, it remains in the forefront of civil rights activities in the old South. Over recent decades, Durham has evolved from a tobacco and textile town to a technology and medical research industry.