Chris Gilmore

A member of the judicial board his entire college career, Chris Gilmore, a junior in political science, said he feels that student chief justice is a natural position for him.

Members of the board, including fellow candidate Lock Whiteside, along with Director of the Office of Student Conduct Paul Cousins urged Gilmore to run for the position, Gilmore said.

“They told me I would be a good candidate,” Gilmore said. “After I thought about it some, I realized that I have leadership skills that will really help the board.”

But after deciding to run, Gilmore found out that Whiteside was also running, pushing for a higher standard of proof.

A higher burden of proof means that there has to be a higher percentage of the board voting against a defendant to find him or her guilty.

Gilmore, though, said there is no point in fixing a system that is not broken.

“We have a model system, and I feel I have a knowledge of the judicial board and its place in the University,” Gilmore said.

According to Gimore, for a reform such as raising the standard of proof to be made, a larger mass of cases has to be collected.

“Landmark cases such as Brown vs. Board of Education were comprised of over 100 different cases,” he said. “You have to have a lot, and Lock doesn’t understand the changes that this reform would make.”

Gilmore said he is against the raised standard because it would inevitably lead to a rise in the severity of the punishments.

“Students didn’t come here to get in trouble and get kicked out,” Gilmore said. “They’re paying money to get out and succeed. So the judicial board should work to make the student a better person.”

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Lock Whiteside

As Lock Whiteside, a senior in political science, vies for his second term as student chief justice, he has one main concern: raising the burden of proof.

After working this year, doing research on how this can be implemented at N.C. State, Whiteside said he finally feels he can accomplish the reform.

“We’ve made significant progress with it and found out that they had it at the school in 1986,” Whiteside said. “I’ve met with various people to see what needs to be done to continue the process, and I plan on continuing it next year.”

According to Whiteside, the judicial board has one shot to propose the reform to the Board of Trustees, which must approve it. If it goes in front of the BOT too many times, Whiteside said he feels the judicial board will lose credibility.

This continual push for the raise in the burden of proof is the major reason Whiteside, who will receive his undergraduate degree in May, said he decided to run for chief justice again.

“After deciding to attend graduate school here and talking with my parents, I decided to run again,” Whiteside said.

A re-established relationship with the Student Senate is an accomplishment Whiteside pointed to from his tenure this year, as the judicial board received an increase in funding from the senate.

“The budget was actually cut over the years, but we were able to get an increase to support educational opportunities against drunk driving — the prevailing amount of cases we see,” Whiteside said.

Because of relationship he has already built and the progress Whiteside said he feels he has made on raising the burden of proof, he said he is ready for a second term.

“This year was a challenge, but I’ve learned a lot,” Whiteside said. “This way, there will be no transition time and I can get right to work.”