There isn’t much in the way of high crimes or misdemeanors in the court records of the two newest entrants in this year’s race for Alamance County’s board of commissioners.
In fact, a handful of speeding tickets is about the extent of the paper trail that the state’s court system has on Samuel C. Powell, the Republican contender for a special two-year term that has emerged on the board since the party primaries in March. [See earlier story on other candidates here: https://alamancenews.com/primary-candidates-have-differing-experiences-based-on-court-records/]
Meanwhile, an erstwhile collection action is the only blip in the legal history of Kourtney J. Royster, the Democratic standard bearer for this same truncated term.
In any event, these rather minimal court records didn’t appear in the trove of court records that The Alamance News published in the run up to this year’s primaries.
The newspaper focused, instead, on the three Democrats and five Republicans who had filed for the two four-year terms that will be available on the board of commissioners in November’s general election.
Interested readers can refer back to this newspaper’s edition from January 29, 2026 to see the legal histories for incumbent commissioners Kelly Allen and Steve Carter, who survived the GOP’s primary for the two regular seats, or for Ramona Allen and Sean C. Ewing, who had made the cut among the Democrats.
The special term that Royster and Powell are seeking is a comparatively late addition to November’s ballot, having emerged after the death of the late county commissioner John Paisley, Jr. less than three weeks before the party primaries took place.
Within a month of his death, the leadership of Alamance County’s GOP had appointed Powell to serve as temporary warmer for Paisley. But it wasn’t until June that the party informed the local election office that Powell would also be their nominee for the two-year position which has been tacked onto November’s ballot to complete Paisley’s unexpired term.
The Democratic Party followed suit in July when it designated Royster as its own champion for this same seat.
In order to subject these newcomers to the same scrutiny as the other would-be commissioners,
The Alamance News has gone to the state court system’s eCourts portal, which allows users to search both civil and criminal court cases for the names of specific individuals.
Samuel C. Powell
In Powell’s case, a simple search of the candidate’s full name generated four hits in eCourts with the same birth year as Paisley’s successor.
The earliest of these four cases concerns a speeding ticket that a Burlington police officer gave Powell on December 7, 2000 for allegedly going 55 in a 35-mile-an-hour zone. Court records indicate that the D.A.’s office “amended” this potential misdemeanor “to [a] warning” on December 19, effectively ending the legal proceedings against Powell – who, at the time, was in the middle of an earlier stint on the board of commissioners.
On May 25, 2012, a member of Liberty’s municipal police force issued another ticket to Powell when he allegedly reached a speed of 59 miles an hour in a 35-mile-an-hour zone within Randolph County. The citation apparently didn’t reach the court system until June 28, and on December 7, 2012, a Randolph County district court judge reduced the offense to improper equipment.
Powell apparently remained out of range of the radar until June 15, 2015 when a state trooper in Alamance County allegedly clocked him at 51 in a 35 mile-an-hour zone. The D.A.’s office dismissed the case with a “warning” to Powell on July 20 of the same year.
On August 1, 2015, Powell was once again in the crosshairs of the NC Highway Patrol – this time, for allegedly going 60 in a 45-mile-an-hour zone. The D.A.’s office went on to dismiss the charge on September 10, 2015.
Kourtney J. Royster
The state’s court system contains a single entry for Kourtney Royster. This civil action was lodged on September 5, 2014 by a Durham-based limited liability corporation called the Portfolio Recovery Association. Couched as an attempt to collect on an account, this action was voluntarily dismissed by the plaintiff on May 18, 2015.
