Susie Sharp: Difference between revisions
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== Career == |
== Career == |
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In 1949, Governor [[Kerr Scott]] appointed her a state [[North Carolina Superior Court|Superior Court]] judge, making her the first female judge in the history of the state. After Sharp became a Superior Court judge, Tom Bost of the ''Greensboro Daily News'' questioned "what would happen if Sharp was faced with trying a case of rape? Wouldn't that be too much for a woman?" Judge Sharp wrote back that "In the first place, there could have been no rape had not a woman been present, and I consider it eminently fitting that one be in on the 'pay-off'." |
In 1949, Governor [[Kerr Scott]] appointed her a state [[North Carolina Superior Court|Superior Court]] judge, making her the first female judge in the history of the state. After Sharp became a Superior Court judge, Tom Bost of the ''Greensboro Daily News'' questioned "what would happen if Sharp was faced with trying a case of rape? Wouldn't that be too much for a woman?" Judge Sharp wrote back that "In the first place, there could have been no rape had not a woman been present, and I consider it eminently fitting that one be in on the 'pay-off'."<ref>{{Cite book |last=Morello |first=Karen Berger |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/13269032 |title=The invisible bar : the woman lawyer in America, 1638 to the present |date=1986 |publisher=Random House |isbn=0-394-52964-2 |location=New York |oclc=13269032}}</ref> |
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[[File:North Carolina Supreme Court, Spring Term, 1968.jpg|thumb|Justices of the North Carolina Supreme Court, Spring Term, 1968. Sharp's portrait is at the far left.]] |
[[File:North Carolina Supreme Court, Spring Term, 1968.jpg|thumb|Justices of the North Carolina Supreme Court, Spring Term, 1968. Sharp's portrait is at the far left.]] |
Revision as of 22:24, 28 March 2022
Susie Sharp | |
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![]() Sharp in 1967 | |
Chief Justice of the North Carolina Supreme Court | |
In office January 2, 1975 – July 31, 1979 | |
Preceded by | William Bobbitt |
Succeeded by | Joseph Branch |
Personal details | |
Born | Rocky Mount, North Carolina, U.S. | July 7, 1907
Died | March 1, 1996 Raleigh, North Carolina, U.S. | (aged 88)
Political party | Democratic |
Bildung | University of North Carolina, Greensboro (BA) University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill (LLB) |
Susie Marshall Sharp (July 7, 1907 – March 1, 1996) was an American jurist who served as the first female chief justice of the North Carolina Supreme Court.[1] She was not the first woman to head the highest court in a U.S. state, but is believed to be the first woman elected to such a post in a state, like North Carolina, in which the position is elected by the people separately from that of Associate Justice. In 1965, Lorna E. Lockwood became the first female chief justice of a state supreme court, but in Arizona, the Supreme Court justices elect their chief justice.
Early years
Sharp was born in 1907 in Rocky Mount, North Carolina to Annie (née Blackwell) and James M. Sharp but spent most of her life in Rockingham County, North Carolina.[2] In 1926 she entered law school at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill as the only woman in her class. In 1929, Sharp went into private practice with her father in the firm of Sharp & Sharp.
Career
In 1949, Governor Kerr Scott appointed her a state Superior Court judge, making her the first female judge in the history of the state. After Sharp became a Superior Court judge, Tom Bost of the Greensboro Daily News questioned "what would happen if Sharp was faced with trying a case of rape? Wouldn't that be too much for a woman?" Judge Sharp wrote back that "In the first place, there could have been no rape had not a woman been present, and I consider it eminently fitting that one be in on the 'pay-off'."[3]
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/eb/North_Carolina_Supreme_Court%2C_Spring_Term%2C_1968.jpg/220px-North_Carolina_Supreme_Court%2C_Spring_Term%2C_1968.jpg)
Judge Sharp was re-appointed by successive governors, and in 1962, Governor Terry Sanford made Sharp the first female Associate Justice of the North Carolina Supreme Court. Justice Sharp was elected by the people that November and again in November 1966 to a full eight-year term. In 1974, voters gave her 74 percent of the vote to elect her Chief Justice of the North Carolina Supreme Court, succeeding her close friend, Chief Justice William H. Bobbitt.
Time, in its January 5, 1976 cover story, named Sharp one of the 12 "women of the year" for 1975. In so doing, Time called her a "trail blazer" with a "reputation as both a compassionate jurist and an incisive legal scholar".[4]
Senator Sam Ervin, a fellow Democrat, recommended to President Richard Nixon that he appoint her to the United States Supreme Court.[5] Nixon declined the advice, and a woman would not be appointed to the Court until Sandra Day O'Connor in 1981.
During Justice Sharp's 17-year tenure on the Supreme Court, she wrote 459 majority opinions, 124 concurring opinions, and 45 dissenting opinions.
Retirement
By law, Justice Sharp had to retire at age 72, which came in 1979. After retiring, she successfully pushed for a constitutional amendment in 1980 that required all judges to be lawyers after her 1974 opponent was a fire extinguisher salesman. Sharp died at age 88, in 1996.[6]
Justice Sharp was also the aunt of Susie Sharp Newsom Lynch, subject of the book Bitter Blood by Jerry Bledsoe.
References
- ^ Usher, Jess (2010). ""The Golfers": African American Golfers of the North Carolina Piedmont and the Struggle for Access". The North Carolina Historical Review. 87 (2): 158–193. ISSN 0029-2494.
- ^ Hayes, Anna R. (2008). Without precedent : the life of Susie Marshall Sharp. Chapel Hill. ISBN 978-0-8078-8781-3. OCLC 503050744.
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) - ^ Morello, Karen Berger (1986). The invisible bar : the woman lawyer in America, 1638 to the present. New York: Random House. ISBN 0-394-52964-2. OCLC 13269032.
- ^ "A Dozen Who Made a Difference". Time. 1976-01-05. pp. 19–22. Retrieved 2022-03-28.
- ^ North Carolina Supreme Court (1995). North Carolina Reports: Cases Argued and Determined in the Supreme Court of North Carolina. Nichols & Gorman, book and job printers. p. 915.
- ^ Robertson, Gary D. (1996-03-01). "Pioneer Justice Susie Sharp Dies". Greensboro News and Record. Retrieved 2022-03-28.
See also
- List of female state supreme court justices
- List of first women lawyers and judges in North Carolina
External links
- Chief Justice Susie Sharp, The Supreme Court of North Carolina / Portrait Presentations.
- Inventory of the Susie Sharp Papers, 1900-1997, in the Southern Historical Collection, UNC-Chapel Hill
- 1907 births
- 1996 deaths
- 20th-century American judges
- American women judges
- Chief Justices of the North Carolina Supreme Court
- North Carolina Democrats
- People from Rocky Mount, North Carolina
- People from Rockingham County, North Carolina
- University of North Carolina School of Law alumni
- Women chief justices of state supreme courts in the United States
- 20th-century women judges
- 20th-century American women