Rosselle Pekelis (1938 – December 9, 2019) was an Italian-born American attorney and jurist who served as a Judge of the

Washington Supreme Court The Washington Supreme Court is the highest court in the judiciary of the U.S. state of Washington (state), Washington. The court is composed of a chief justice and eight associate justices. Members of the court are elected to six-year terms. ...

. She previously served as a judge on the

King County Superior Court The Superior Court of Washington for King County (more commonly, the King County Superior Court) is the largest trial court in Washington state. It is based at the King County Courthouse, 516 Third Avenue, in downtown Seattle, Washington. It ...

from 1981 to 1986, the

Court of Appeals An appellate court, commonly called a court of appeal(s), appeal court, court of second instance or second instance court, is any court of law that is empowered to hear a case upon appeal from a trial court or other lower tribunal. Appellat ...

from 1986 to 1995, and the Supreme Court in 1995 to fill a vacancy.

Early life and education

Pekelis was born in

Florence Florence ( ; ) is the capital city of the Italy, Italian region of Tuscany. It is also the most populated city in Tuscany, with 362,353 inhabitants, and 989,460 in Metropolitan City of Florence, its metropolitan province as of 2025. Florence ...

, Italy, and raised in

Larchmont, New York Larchmont is a Village (New York), village located within the Town (New York), Town of Mamaroneck (town), New York, Mamaroneck in Westchester County, New York. Larchmont is a suburb of New York City, located approximately northeast of Midt ...

, 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 Stephens College is a Private college, private Women's colleges in the United States, women's college in Columbia, Missouri, United States. It is Timeline of women's colleges in the United States#First and oldest, the second-oldest women's educa ...

and a

Bachelor of Laws A Bachelor of Laws (; LLB) is an undergraduate law degree offered in most common law countries as the primary law degree and serves as the first professional qualification for legal practitioners. This degree requires the study of core legal subje ...

from the

University of Missouri School of Law The University of Missouri School of Law (Mizzou Law or MU Law) is the law school of the University of Missouri. It is located on the university's main campus in Columbia, forty minutes from the Missouri State Capitol in Jefferson City. The s ...

Career

Pekelis was appointed to the

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

, 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 William Booth Gardner (August 21, 1936 – March 15, 2013) was an American politician who served as the 19th governor of Washington from 1985 to 1993. He also served as the ambassador of the GATT. A member of the Democratic Party, Gardner previ ...

appointed Pekelis to the

Washington Court of Appeals The Washington Court of Appeals is the intermediate level appellate court for the state of Washington. The court is divided into three divisions. Division I is based in Seattle, Division II is based in Tacoma, and Division III is based in Spok ...

, 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 Michael Edward Lowry (March 8, 1939 – May 1, 2017) was an American politician who served as the 20th governor of Washington from 1993 to 1997. His political career ended when his deputy press secretary, Susanne Albright, made accusations of ...

in April 1995 to fill a seat left empty by the departure of Bob Utter. Major cases of hers include a 1992 Court of Appeals ruling that gender-based

peremptory challenges The right of peremptory challenge is a legal right in jury selection for the attorneys to reject a certain number of potential jurors or judges without stating a reason. The idea behind peremptory challenges is that if both parties have contributed ...

violated the Equal Rights Amendment to the Washington Constitution as well as the

United States Constitution The Constitution of the United States is the Supremacy Clause, supreme law of the United States, United States of America. It superseded the Articles of Confederation, the nation's first constitution, on March 4, 1789. Originally includi ...

, as well as a 1995 Supreme Court ruling for the adequacy of existing

implied consent Implied consent is consent which is not expressly granted by a person, but rather implicitly granted by a person's actions and the facts and circumstances of a particular situation (or in some cases, by a person's silence or inaction). For examp ...

warnings given to

drunken driving Drunk driving (or drink-driving in British English) is the act of driving under the influence of alcohol. A small increase in the blood alcohol content increases the relative risk of a motor vehicle crash. In the United States, alcohol is in ...

suspects before they took

breathalyzer A breathalyzer or breathalyser (a portmanteau of ''breath'' and ''analyzer/analyser''), also called an alcohol meter, is a device for measuring breath alcohol (drug), alcohol content (BrAC). It is commonly utilized by law enforcement officers ...

tests. In her re-election race in November 1995, Pekelis faced Richard B. Sanders, a local

land use Land use is an umbrella term to describe what happens on a parcel of land. It concerns the benefits derived from using the land, and also the land management actions that humans carry out there. The following categories are used for land use: fo ...

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

Seattle Times ''The Seattle Times'' is an American daily newspaper based in Seattle, Washington. Founded in 1891, ''The Seattle Times'' has the largest circulation of any newspaper in the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest region. The Seattle Time ...

'' 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, voluntary process for resolving disputes, facilitated by a neutral third party known as the mediator. It is a structured, interactive process where an independent third party, the mediator, assists disputing parties ...

firm with other former area judges in 1997.

Personal life

Both her husband and ex-husband practiced law in the

Seattle Seattle ( ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Washington and in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. With a population of 780,995 in 2024, it is the 18th-most populous city in the United States. The city is the cou ...

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

glioblastoma multiforme Glioblastoma, previously known as glioblastoma multiforme (GBM), is the most aggressive and most common type of cancer that originates in the brain, and has a very poor prognosis for survival. Initial signs and symptoms of glioblastoma are nons ...

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 Lawyers from Seattle 20th-century American judges 20th-century American women judges American Jews Jewish women writers