Female chief justices of state supreme courts
As of March 2025, 43 out of the 50 states have had women in the top role of the state's judiciary. Arizona became the first state to have a female chief justice of its supreme court in 1965. North Carolina became the second state in 1975. In the 1990s, 15 states had a female chief justice for the first time. This page includes a table with the current female chief justices and a table indicating when a woman first served as chief justice in each state.
The current female chief justices of the state supreme courts are:
History
Lorna Lockwood
Lorna Lockwood (1903-1977) was the first woman in the country to serve as chief justice of a state supreme court. Lockwood began serving on the Arizona Supreme Court in 1965.
Lockwood was born in 1903. She attended the University of Arizona and passed the state bar in 1925. From 1939 to 1942, and from 1947 to 1949, she was a member of the Arizona House of Representatives. She became a judge on the Maricopa County Superior Court in 1951. A decade later, she was elected to the Arizona Supreme Court, where she served for 14 years. She served two one-year terms as chief justice in 1965 and 1970. She was considered for appointment to the United States Supreme Court in 1967, but President Lyndon Johnson nominated Thurgood Marshall instead.
Lockwood was inducted into the Arizona Women's Hall of Fame in 1981. She is featured in the Arizona Judiciary's Legends of the Judiciary project, which consists of videos commemorating seven important figures in Arizona's judicial history. Access the videos here.[1][2]
When did each state get its first female chief justice?
| Decade | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1960s | 1970s | 1980s | 1990s | 2000s | 2010s | 2020s | Never |
Lorna Lockwood |
Susie Sharp |
Ellen Ash Peters |
Rosemary Barkett |
Dana Fabe |
Linda Dalianis |
Dana Kuehn |
|
Rose Bird |
Ann Covington |
Karla Gray |
Cynthia Kinser |
Debra Todd |
|||
Mary Coleman |
Judith Kaye |
Jean Hoefer Toal |
Marilyn Kite |
Debra Hembree Lambert |
|||
Margaret Workman |
Sharon Keller |
Maureen O'Connor |
|||||
Kay McFarland |
Leigh Ingalls Saufley |
Mary Ellen Barbera |
|||||
Barbara Durham |
Mary Ann McMorrow |
Loretta H. Rush |
|||||
Alma Wilson |
Christine Durham |
Martha Walters |
|||||
Deborah Poritz |
Petra Jimenez Maes |
||||||
Shirley Abrahamson |
Betty Dickey |
||||||
Linda Copple Trout |
Leah Ward Sears |
||||||
Miriam Shearing |
Marsha Ternus |
||||||
Mary Mullarkey |
Sue Bell Cobb |
||||||
Kathleen Blatz |
Janice Holder |
||||||
Lenore Prather |
Catherine D. Kimball |
||||||
Margaret Marshall |
|||||||
[3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41][42][43]
See also
- Chief Justice
- State supreme courts
- First Black justices on the state supreme courts
- State supreme court opinions
Footnotes
- ↑ Arizona Women's Heritage Trail, "Lorna Lockwood," accessed March 20, 2015
- ↑ Arizona Women's Hall of Fame, "Lorna Lockwood," accessed March 20, 2015
- ↑ North Carolina Supreme Court Historical Society, "Justices of the Court," accessed February 3, 2014
- ↑ Wikipedia.org, "Rose Bird"
- ↑ Michigan Supreme Court Historical Society, "Mary Coleman"
- ↑ Yale Law School, "Former Justice Ellen Ash Peters ’54 Honored at Last Sitting," June 10, 2014
- ↑ Florida Supreme Court, "Justice Rosemary Barkett"
- ↑ University of Missouri, "Ann K. Covington"
- ↑ New York Courts, "Judith Smith Kaye"
- ↑ West Virginia Judiciary, "Chief Justice Margaret L. Workman"
- ↑ Kansas Judicial Branch, "Honorable Kay McFarland"
- ↑ Komo News, "Pioneering Former State Chief Justice Barbara Durham Dies," December 31, 2002
- ↑ Wikipedia.org, "Deborah Poritz"
- ↑ Madison.com, "Shirley Abrahamson — first woman on Wisconsin Supreme Court — now also longest-serving member," April 12, 2013
- ↑ National Women's History Museum, "Linda Copple Trout"
- ↑ Nevada Judiciary, "Judicial trailblazer Miriam Shearing given Supreme Court’s Legacy of Justice Award," October 5, 2012
- ↑ Distinctly Oklahoma, "Judge Alma Bell Wilson," October 2, 2011
- ↑ Denver Post, "Mullarkey, chief justice of Colorado Supreme Court, stepping down," June 4, 2010
- ↑ Twin Cities, "Retired Minnesota Chief Justice Kathleen Blatz chosen to oversee state spending pleas during shutdown," June 30, 2011
- ↑ Northeast Daily Mississippi Journal, "HED: Prather sworn in as first female chief justice," February 5, 1998
- ↑ WGBH News, "This Week In History: Margaret Marshall Becomes First Woman Chief Justice Of Mass. SJC," October 17, 2014
- ↑ Anchorage Eventful, "WOMEN JUDGES: ARE THEY MAKING A DIFFERENCE?" March 17, 2014
- ↑ Montana Courts, "MONTANA WOMEN & THE LAW"
- ↑ South Carolina Supreme Court, "Chief Justice Jean Hoefer Toal"
- ↑ Maine Judicial Branch, "Supreme Court Justice Biographies"
- ↑ Chicago Tribune, "Mary Ann McMorrow," February 25, 2013
- ↑ Deseret News, "Durham endures," October 4, 2003
- ↑ American Bar Association, "ABA to Honor New Mexico Supreme Court Justice Petra Jimenez Maes for Promoting Diversity in Law," November 3, 2011
- ↑ Leslie Rutledge Attorney General, "Former Chief Justice Endorses Rutledge," July 31, 2013
- ↑ Wikipedia.org, "Leah Ward Sears"
- ↑ Marsha Ternus website
- ↑ Politico, "I Was Alabama’s Top Judge. I’m Ashamed by What I Had to Do to Get There," March 2015
- ↑ Tennessee Courts, "JUSTICE JANICE HOLDER, FIRST FEMALE TO SERVE AS TENNESSEE SUPREME COURT CHIEF JUSTICE, ANNOUNCES RETIREMENT," June 26, 2015
- ↑ Louisiana State Bar Association, "Nomination Deadline is April 6 for Catherine D. Kimball Award"
- ↑ Concord Monitor, "Court's first woman for chief justice," November 17, 2010
- ↑ Governor's Press Release, "Governor McDonnell Congratulates Justice Kinser on Her Investiture as First Female Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Virginia," February 16, 2011
- ↑ Jackson Hole Daily "Kite to be chief justice," March 18, 2010
- ↑ Supreme Court of Ohio, "Chief Justice Maureen O'Connor"
- ↑ The Daily Record, "O’Malley appoints Barbera as chief judge of Court of Appeals," July 3, 2013
- ↑ Indy Star, "Loretta Rush named first female chief justice of Indiana Supreme Court," August 6, 2014
- ↑ Oklahoma Governor J. Kevin Stitt, "Governor Kevin Stitt Appoints Judge Dana L. Kuehn to The Supreme Court of Oklahoma," July 26, 2021
- ↑ WGAL, "Justice Debra Todd formally installed as first female Chief Justice in history of Pa. Supreme Court," accessed January 23, 2023
- ↑ Kentucky BAR Association, “Debra Hembree Lambert elected Chief Justice" accessed January 9, 2025
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