Angela Foster Censured Suspended

Guilford County District Court Judge Angela Foster called the Wake County magistrate's office and asked them to reconsider a $1,000 bond for an inmate — without ever disclosing that the inmate, Alexander Pinnix (who has a different last name), was her own son, held on charges of resisting a public officer and misdemeanor breaking or entering. Separately, Foster was charged with demanding that an assistant district attorney and a presiding magistrate close administrative court so she could personally use the courtroom — a demand that forced more than 100 unrelated cases to be continued to a later date. This wasn't Foster's first discipline. In 2019, she was censured for holding a hearing without notice, jailing a mother without legal cause, and lecturing the jailed mother's children in an apparent attempt to pressure them into visiting their father. The North Carolina Supreme Court suspended Foster without pay for 120 days over the bond and courtroom incidents.