When the state Supreme Court reconsiders a previous ruling in the 30-year-old Leandro case this week, Justice Phil Berger Jr. will take part in the hearing and deliberations even though his father, the powerful leader of the state Senate, is one of the legislative intervenors who asked for the unusual proceeding.

Berger Jr.’s colleagues (he did not participate in the vote) split along party lines on whether he needed to recuse himself from a hearing that could decide whether the state has to comply with a previous Supreme Court order on K-12 education spending. […]

Anne Blythe, a former reporter for The News & Observer, has reported on courts, criminal justice, and an array of topics in North Carolina for more than three decades.

Michael Hewlett is a courts and law reporter for The Assembly. He was previously a legal affairs reporter at the Winston-Salem Journal and has won two Henry Lee Weathers Freedom of Information Awards.