Draft:Orlando F. Hudson, Jr.

Orlando Frank Hudson, Jr. (born March 21, 1953) is a retired District Court and senior Superior Court judge of the North Carolina court system. He was appointed a District Court judge in 1984, elected to the Superior Court in 1989, and retired in 2022.

In his time on the bench, Hudson presided over numerous high-profile cases, including the Michael Peterson trial and the Duke lacrosse case. He was a protegé of Sammie Chess, Jr., North Carolina's first Black Superior Court judge.

Birth and Family
Hudson was born in High Point, N.C. to Syrena Pridgen Hudson and Orlando F. Hudson.

Education and Career
Hudson earned his undergraduate and law degrees from UNC Chapel Hill, completing his studies there in 1978. Following graduation, he worked in High Point as an associate attorney for the law firm of noted civil rights attorney Sammie Chess, Jr., then moved to Fayetteville N.C. in 1980, where he worked as an assistant public defender. In November of 1982, Durham District Attorney Ronald L. Stephens selected Hudson as one of three new assistant DAs, supplementing five others he had retained from the staff of outgoing DA Dan K. Edwards, Jr.

in 1983-84 before being appointed to the bench. In 1984, North Carolina governor Jim Hunt appointed Hudson to the District Court in North Carolina's Fourteenth District. In 1989, he was elected to the Superior Court of North Carolina, a post he held until his retirement in 2022.