Superior Court Judge Kuehnert on life, law, and family

As early voting begins, one name won’t be reappearing on Burke County ballot sheets: Senior Resident Superior Court Judge Daniel Kuehnert.

Kuehnert explained that turning 72 means mandatory retirement, and the judge will see that age by the end of the year.

ROLES OF A JUDGE

The Superior Court holds trials from serious civil lawsuits to felony criminal charges, meaning Kuehnert has seen it all. One of the largest problems that keeps resurfacing is drug use across the county.

When Kuehnert’s old legal partner, John Jones, pointed out that the lawyer’s role was to be a problem solver, the former lawyer started viewing his duties in a new light.

“If (lawyers are) doing their job well, they’re counseling their client,” Kuehnert said. “They’re trying to find ways to solve their legal problems, but a lot of times, those legal problems have physical components. … You’re trying to solve the underlying problem as well as dealing with the immediate problem.”

By the time he took the judgeship, methamphetamine had become a big issue locally. Fentanyl wasn’t far behind and eventually dominated the addiction landscape.

The judge explained that before the opioid crisis reached its summit, he would sign around two to three abatement orders a year. An abatement order closes a case when a defendant dies.

At the peak of fentanyl’s rampage, Kuehnert remembers signing two to three abatement orders a week.

In response, Kuehnert got involved with the Burke County Recovery Court, a program where nonviolent, first- or second-time drug offenders undergo probation and counseling through the court.

“It’s generally a way to keep close tabs, both on probation and from the court system, on individuals that they think will be successful because they have some motivation to be successful,” Kuehnert said. “If they don’t, then they’re kicked out of drug court, and they end up facing a judge like me.”

The program appears to be working. He now signs closer to two or three abatement orders a month.

“We need to punish people who are doing wrong,” the judge said, “But we also need to encourage people in the course of their punishment to turn their life around and to do better.”

EDUCATION

AND CAREER

Kuehnert’s career in law began unexpectedly in New York as a deputy sheriff following his sophomore year at the State University of New York at Oswego.

Kuehnert didn’t realize he had applied for the deputy sheriff position, explaining that he understood it to be a routine summer job.

When he got the offer and they mentioned a uniform, he hid his shock and rolled with the tide, first working in the ID room — mainly due to his long hair — before he eventually worked in the jail.

He decided to pursue law school because a friend, Roger, at the department got into the New England School of Law in Boston.

“I thought, I know Roger pretty well,” Kuehnert reminisced. “If Roger can do it, maybe I can.”

He improved his test scores and started looking at universities to attend. When lawyers in the area warned him that the market was oversaturated, he decided to head down south to North Carolina, where his mother was from, and where lawyers weren’t as abundant.

While pursuing his Juris Doctor degree at Wake Forest University School of Law, he clerked for a local lawyer and later joined the practice, where he stayed for a few years before opening his own office.

“You never know in life how things are gonna work out,” Kuehnert said. “Certain doors open and certain doors close.”

He turned down the opportunity to be a U.S. attorney in Raleigh because he and his now-wife were engaged and felt that Morganton was the place to raise a family.

After acting as the Burke County commissioners’ lawyer for two four-year stints, 1994-98 and 2002-08, Kuehnert ran for superior court in 2014, winning the seat and residing in the position ever since.

When Superior Court Judge Bob Ervin retired late last year, Kuehnert became the Senior Resident Superior Court Judge.

FAMILY

The judge and his wife, Cindy, raised six children together — three boys and three girls.

Kuehnert said he thought they were finished at five, but his daughter, Hannah, skipped past asking for puppies and wrote them a letter suggesting that they even the numbers with a little boy.

“She started naming people that she knew had six kids,” he said. “She said, ‘If you have another boy, I’ll help change its diaper and feed it,’ and that’s how we ended up with Samuel.”

When asked what he viewed as his most proud achievement, he pointed first to his kids’ character traits before his involvement as a lawyer in the expansion and protection of the Lake James area.

“All my kids — I think they love to learn,” Kuehnert said. “They’re different politically. They’re different personalities, but they all get along great and they love each other. I think they’re doing what they’re supposed to be doing.”

While he’s not certain what he’ll be doing post-retirement, he does plan to spend more time with his family and continue to work part-time as a mediator and arbitrator.