Willis Padgett Whichard[1] (born May 24, 1940) is an American lawyer and a prominent figure in North Carolina politics and education.

Whichard was the justice who, in 1996, denied the appeal of Dontae Sharpe, a man later discovered to be innocent after spending more than 20 years in jail.

Whichard determined there had been "no error" in the original case [5] Whichard retired from the Court in 1998 and served as Dean of the Norman Adrian Wiggins School of Law at Campbell University from 1999 until his retirement as Dean in 2006, when he became a partner at the law firm of Moore & Van Allen in its Research Triangle Park office.

A student of North Carolina judicial history, Whichard has written a biography of James Iredell, a North Carolinian who led the state’s Federalists in supporting ratification of the Constitution and was later appointed to the United States Supreme Court by President George Washington.

Judge Whichard has the distinction of being the only person in the history of the State of North Carolina to have served as member of the two bodies of the NC Legislature (House and Senate) and on both of the state's appellate courts (Appeals and Supreme Court).