On Monday, a superior court judge upheld a lower court’s decision to convict an assistant public defender of criminal contempt and send him to jail.
Superior Court Judge Jason Ramey’s ruling came after a rare day-long hearing in which Juan Zuluaga found himself, for the first time in his 16 years as an assistant public defender in High Point, as the defendant.
Monday’s hearing capped events that began on August 24, when Zuluaga came to Courtroom 3C at the High Point courthouse. He was representing Jalen Xavier Curtain, a 33-year-old High Point man who was facing charges of misdemeanor assault on a child under 12 and ethnic intimidation following an incident in late July. (A district court judge found Curtain not guilty after a bench trial on September 23.)
Guilford District Court Judge Ashley Watlington-Simms had granted a motion to continue the case, which Zuluaga had opposed, and decided to keep Curtain’s bond undisturbed. What happened next was disputed during Monday’s hearing, but Watlington-Simms believed Zuluaga disrupted court and was disrespectful to her. She found Zuluaga guilty of criminal contempt and sentenced him to five days in jail.
Zuluaga appealed to Guilford Superior Court, saying he was merely advocating for his client, as all criminal defense attorneys should.
Her ruling sent shockwaves throughout Guilford County’s legal community. John Nieman, who served four years as Guilford County’s chief public defender, told The Assembly in September that he had never seen an attorney jailed for criminal contempt in his more than 30 years working as a criminal defense attorney in the county.
In North Carolina, Zuluaga appeared to be only the second attorney jailed for criminal contempt in the past five years. In 2023, a Dare County judge found an assistant capital defender guilty of criminal contempt and sentenced him to the maximum 30 days in jail; ultimately, the attorney, who is appealing, spent only one night in jail.
Zuluaga spent three days behind bars before he was released on a $500 unsecured bond.
Monday’s hearing took place in Courtroom 4C, one floor above the courtroom where August 24’s events took place.
Many of Zuluaga’s colleagues from the Guilford County Public Defender’s Office came out to support him. Zuluaga’s boss, Chief Public Defender Jennifer Rierson, spent much of the day in the courtroom, watching the proceedings and sometimes consulting with Zuluaga’s attorney, Preston Edwards.
Jonathan Holbrook, a prosecutor with the N.C. Conference of District Attorneys, called eight witnesses, including Watlington-Simms and a Raleigh attorney who was in court waiting for a civil matter to be handled. All gave differing accounts to how long the back-and-forth between Watlington-Simms and Zuluaga lasted and how disruptive it was.
Many said Zuluaga never raised his voice or used profanity but that he kept interrupting the judge who had repeatedly warned him that if he didn’t stop talking, he would be held in contempt. Denise Branch, the Raleigh attorney, called Zuluaga’s conduct disturbing and inappropriate.
But the most potent testimony came from Zuluaga and Watlington-Simms, who gave vastly different versions of what happened on August 24.
Curtain, Zuluaga’s client, was scheduled to go to trial that day. A judge had set the trial the previous week after denying Zuluaga’s bond motion. The prosecutor had assured the judge that prosecuting witnesses would be available for the trial on August 24. But when the day came, Zuluaga said, the prosecuting witnesses weren’t there. That’s why he opposed the state’s motion to continue. He had said that if Watlington-Simms was going to grant the continuance, he wanted to be heard on a request to have his client’s bond reduced.
According to Zuluaga, that didn’t happen. Watlington-Simms just granted the motion and said that the bond would not be reduced. Zuluaga said his client asked him to explain what happened. That’s when Zuluaga requested permission to ask a question. Watlington-Simms refused, saying that she had ruled and the matter had been closed. By the time Zuluaga had gone to ask his question, Curtain had been taken out of the courtroom.
Zuluaga said he never got the question out because the judge kept shutting him down. His intent was not to disrespect Watlington-Simms or challenge her ruling, he said.
“I didn’t change the tone of my voice,” he said. “I didn’t raise my voice. I wanted to be heard because I was trying to answer a question for my client.”
Watlington-Simms saw things very differently. She told Zuluaga that she would consider hearing his bond motion, she testified. But Zuluaga never provided the statutory factors she is supposed to consider with a bond motion, she said. She also insisted that Zuluaga asked for an unsecured bond; Zuluaga disputed that, saying he knew his client wouldn’t qualify for one. He said he was asking for a reduced bond.
Zuluaga kept making outbursts and disrupting the court, Watlington-Simms said, long after she had made her ruling. She repeatedly warned Zuluaga that she would hold him in contempt if he didn’t stop talking, she said, at one point telling him to leave the courtroom to de-escalate the situation.
Zuluaga wouldn’t stop, she said.
Ramey, the superior court judge, ultimately sided with Watlington-Simms, upholding the conviction and sentencing the public defender to time served for the three days Zuluaga spent in jail.
Zuluaga took the ruling in stride. Outside the courtroom, he thanked his supporters. He said he believed he was doing the right thing and was advocating for his client. Others thought differently.
“Perception is reality,” he said.
