Robert Alfred "Fred" Hedrick (August 23, 1922 - July 18, 2009)Robert Alfred Hedrick
/ref> was an American

jurist A jurist is a person with expert knowledge of law; someone who analyses and comments on law. This person is usually a specialist legal scholar, mostly (but not always) with a formal qualification in law and often a legal practitioner. In the Uni ...

who served for 24 years on the North Carolina Court of Appeals. Blinded at the age of 13, Hedrick graduated from the

Governor Morehead School Governor Morehead School (GMS), formerly North Carolina State School for the Blind and Deaf, is a K–12 public school for the blind in Raleigh, North Carolina. In the era of de jure educational segregation in the United States, it served blind peo ...

for the blind in 1943. He later graduated from the

University of North Carolina School of Law The University of North Carolina School of Law is the law school of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Established in 1845, Carolina Law is among the oldest law schools in the United States and is the oldest law school in North Carol ...

and served as a

prosecutor A prosecutor is a legal representative of the prosecution in states with either the common law adversarial system or the Civil law (legal system), civil law inquisitorial system. The prosecution is the legal party responsible for presenting the ...

and

judge A judge is a person who presides over court proceedings, either alone or as a part of a panel of judges. A judge hears all the witnesses and any other evidence presented by the barristers or solicitors of the case, assesses the credibility an ...

in Iredell County, North Carolina. In 1969, then-governor Bob Scott appointed Hedrick to the state appeals court. He was elected by the voters in 1970 and re-elected several times thereafter. In 1974, he ran for the state supreme court but lost to

James G. Exum James Gooden Exum Jr. also known as Jim Exum (born September 14, 1935) is an American jurist who served on the North Carolina Supreme Court from 1975 to 1994, and as chief justice from 1986 to 1994. Under his leadership, the court "expanded civil ...

of the Democratic primary. Hedrick served as chief judge of the Court of Appeals from 1984 until his retirement in 1993. Hedrick's first female law clerk was Linda Stephens, who later became a judge of the North Carolina Court of Appeals. He also gave her away at her wedding, which was held in Hedrick's chambers.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hedrick, Fred 2009 deaths North Carolina Court of Appeals judges American blind people 1922 births 20th-century American judges University of North Carolina School of Law alumni Blind lawyers American lawyers with disabilities