Susie Sharp
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.
Susie Sharp
July 7, 1907
Rocky Mount, North Carolina, U.S.
March 1, 1996 (aged 88)
Raleigh, North Carolina, U.S.
Early years[edit]
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]
Retirement[edit]
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.