Rosselle Pekelis (1938 – December 9, 2019) was an Italian-born American attorney and jurist who served as a Judge of the Washington Supreme Court. She previously served as a judge on the King County Superior Court from 1981 to 1986, the Court of Appeals from 1986 to 1995, and the Supreme Court in 1995 to fill a vacancy.

Early life and education

Pekelis was born in

Florence Florence ( ; it, Firenze ) is a city in Central Italy and the capital city of the Tuscany region. It is the most populated city in Tuscany, with 383,083 inhabitants in 2016, and over 1,520,000 in its metropolitan area.Bilancio demografico ...

, Italy, and raised in Larchmont, New York, to a family of Italian Jews who escaped France during the Nazi Germany invasion of 1940. She earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from Stephens College and a

Bachelor of Laws Bachelor of Laws ( la, Legum Baccalaureus; LL.B.) is an undergraduate law degree in the United Kingdom and most common law jurisdictions. Bachelor of Laws is also the name of the law degree awarded by universities in the People's Republic of ...

from the University of Missouri School of Law.

Career

Pekelis was appointed to the King County Superior Court by

Dixy Lee Ray Dixy Lee Ray (September 3, 1914 – January 2, 1994) was an American politician who served as the 17th governor of Washington from 1977 to 1981. Variously described as idiosyncratic and "ridiculously smart," she was the state's first female gover ...

, and later re-elected to that position. While there, she was widely noted for a humorous incident in which she asked a police officer in her court who was chewing gum to throw it away. The officer misunderstood her and began to place his gun in the wastebasket. Booth Gardner appointed Pekelis to the Washington Court of Appeals, a position to which she was also later re-elected; in total, she served on that court for nine years. Pekelis was appointed to the Washington Supreme Court by Mike Lowry in April 1995 to fill a seat left empty by the departure of

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. Major cases of hers include a 1992 Court of Appeals ruling that gender-based peremptory challenges violated the Equal Rights Amendment to the

Washington Constitution The Constitution of the State of Washington is the document that describes the structure and function of the government of the U.S. State of Washington. The constitution was adopted as part of Washington Territory's path to statehood in 1889. An ...

as well as the United States Constitution, as well as a 1995 Supreme Court ruling for the adequacy of existing implied consent warnings given to drunken driving suspects before they took breathalyzer tests. In her re-election race in November 1995, Pekelis faced

Richard B. Sanders Richard B. Sanders is a former justice of the Washington Supreme Court. Early life and education Richard Sanders attended Highline High School. In school, he played horn in the band and was a member of the debate team. He graduated from the Unive ...

, a local

land use Land use involves the management and modification of natural environment or wilderness into built environment such as settlements and semi-natural habitats such as arable fields, pastures, and managed woods. Land use by humans has a long his ...

attorney. Sanders defeated her in the election by about 53% to 47%. ''

Seattle Times ''The Seattle Times'' is a daily newspaper serving Seattle, Washington, United States. It was founded in 1891 and has been owned by the Blethen family since 1896. ''The Seattle Times'' has the largest circulation of any newspaper in Washington s ...

'' columnist Terry Tang decried Sanders' campaign as "boorishly partisan" and wrote that the departure of "an excellent judge like Rosselle Pekelis" would likely fuel further distrust of the judiciary. The race was later analyzed as the start of a trend towards increasing politicization of judicial elections. After her election defeat, Pekelis joined the Seattle Ethics and Elections Commission in 1996 and formed a

mediation Mediation is a structured, interactive process where an impartial third party neutral assists disputing parties in resolving conflict through the use of specialized communication and negotiation techniques. All participants in mediation are ...

firm with other former area judges in 1997.

Personal life

Both her husband and ex-husband practiced law in the

Seattle Seattle ( ) is a port, seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the county seat, seat of King County, Washington, King County, Washington (state), Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in bo ...

area. She had four children. Pekelis died on December 9, 2019, three months after she was diagnosed with glioblastoma multiforme.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Pekelis, Rosselle 1938 births 2019 deaths Italian emigrants to the United States 20th-century Italian Jews Stephens College alumni University of Missouri alumni Justices of the Washington Supreme Court Jews who emigrated to escape Nazism People from Larchmont, New York People from Seattle 20th-century American judges American people of Italian descent 20th-century American women judges Jewish American attorneys Jewish women