Federal Defender to Face Harassment-Based Equal Protection Trial

The chief federal public defender in Charlotte, N.C., must face trial on a former assistant’s claim that he was deliberately indifferent to her complaint that the male first assistant was sexually harassing her.

The ruling Tuesday by the US District Court for the Western District of North Carolina involves a high-profile case in which then-US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit Chief Judge Roger L. Gregory was ordered to testify.

That came after the circuit in an April 2022 ruling partially revived Caryn Devins Strickland’s lawsuit against the US government, the Judicial Conference of the United States, and various ...