Russell "Rusty" Duke is a judge of the North Carolina Superior Court

Superior court

In common law systems, a superior court is a court of general competence which typically has unlimited jurisdiction with regard to civil and criminal legal cases...

 in Pitt County, North Carolina

Pitt County, North Carolina

-Demographics:As of the census of 2000, there were 133,798 people, 52,539 households, and 32,258 families residing in the county. The population density was 205 people per square mile . There were 58,408 housing units at an average density of 90 per square mile...

 for the past fourteen years, who unsuccessfully ran for the office of Chief Justice

Chief Justice

The Chief Justice in many countries is the name for the presiding member of a Supreme Court in Commonwealth or other countries with an Anglo-Saxon justice system based on English common law, such as the Supreme Court of Canada, the Constitutional Court of South Africa, the Court of Final Appeal of...

 of the North Carolina Supreme Court

North Carolina Supreme Court

The Supreme Court of North Carolina is the state's highest appellate court. Until the creation of the North Carolina Court of Appeals in the 1960s, it was the state's only appellate court. The Supreme Court consists of six associate justices and one chief justice, although the number of justices...

 in November 2006

North Carolina judicial elections, 2006

Justices of the North Carolina Supreme Court and judges of the North Carolina Court of Appeals are elected to eight-year terms in statewide judicial elections. In 2006, allthese races were non-partisan...

. Before serving on the Superior Court bench, he served as a District Court judge for two years, and prior to that was a general practitioner for ten years.

A Republican, he received his High School diploma from Farmville High School in 1966 and a B.A. in history (1970) and JD (1974) from Wake Forest University

Wake Forest University

Wake Forest University is a private, coeducational university in the U.S. state of North Carolina, founded in 1834. The university received its name from its original location in Wake Forest, north of Raleigh, North Carolina, the state capital. The Reynolda Campus, the university's main campus, is...

.

From 1974 to January, 1976 he was a law clerk for the Honorable John D. Larkins, Jr., United States District Court Judge for the Eastern District of North Carolina.