Susie Sharp
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Susie Sharp | |
---|---|
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 |
Education | 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
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, and graduated Order of the Coif.. In 1929, Sharp went into private practice with her father in the firm of Sharp & Sharp.[3]
Career
In 1949, Governor
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.[6] 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".[7]
Senator
During Justice Sharp's 17-year tenure on the Supreme Court, she wrote 459 majority opinions, 124 concurring opinions, and 45 dissenting opinions.[8]
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.[9]
Justice Sharp was also the aunt of Susie Sharp Newsom Lynch, subject of the book Bitter Blood by Jerry Bledsoe.
See also
- List of female state supreme court justices
- List of first women lawyers and judges in North Carolina
References
- JSTOR 23523892.
- )
- ISBN 978-0-8078-3214-1.
- OCLC 13269032.
- JSTOR 27567612.
- ISSN 0950-4125.
- ^ "A Dozen Who Made a Difference". Time. 1976-01-05. pp. 19–22. Retrieved 2022-03-28.
- ^ a b 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. pp. 904–916.
- ^ Robertson, Gary D. (1996-03-01). "Pioneer Justice Susie Sharp Dies". Greensboro News and Record. Retrieved 2022-03-28.
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