Charlotte Anne Perretta

Charlotte Anne Perretta (1942-April 10, 2015) was the first woman to sit on the Massachusetts Appeals Court.[1]

Justice Charlotte Anne Perretta

Early life and education

Perretta was born in 1942[2] and grew up in Hartford, Connecticut to Lois (née Gubtil) and Armando Perretta, a homemaker and restaurateur.[1] She had two brothers, Mike and James.[1][2]

Perretta attended Mount St. Joseph Academy before receiving a bachelor's degree from the College of St. Elizabeth in 1964 and a law degree from Suffolk University Law School in 1967.[1][3][4]

Early in her career, Perretta represented indigent clients with the Massachusetts Defenders Committee on post-conviction matters.[1][2][5] She then joined the firm of Crane, Inker & Oteri where she argued cases before the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court and the Appeals Court, which had recently been created.[5][1][2] She co-founded her own firm in the mid-1980s, Keating, Perretta & Pierce, before practicing with Ronald Wysocki.[1][2][5] She worked in both state and federal courts and as an assistant in the Middlesex County District Attorney's office.[4]

In 1978, then-Governor Michael S. Dukakis appointed her to the Appeals Court, the first woman to hold that post.[3][1][2][4][5] She took the oath of office on December 21, 1978, becoming the second youngest appeals court justice ever.[5]

Her portrait hangs in the main courtroom, facing the justice sitting on the bench.[1] When she retired on October 2, 2009, she was the senior associate justice on the court and had authored over 1,700 opinions.[1][2][5][3]

Personal life

Perretta was the commencement speaker at Endicott College in 1982.[1] She lived in Boston.[1] In 1984, she received an honorary doctorate from New England School of Law, where she taught trial practice for many years as an adjunct faculty member.[5][2][1]

She died April 10, 2015 at the age of 72 in Wallingford, Connecticut.[1][2] Her funeral mass was said at Corpus Christi Church in Wethersfield, Connecticut.[1] Perretta was buried in Mt St Benedict Cemetery in Bloomfield, Connecticut.[6]

See also

References
  1. Marquard, Bryan. "Charlotte Anne Perretta, 72, first woman to serve on state Appeals Court - The Boston Globe". The Boston Globe. Retrieved April 13, 2020.
  2. "Associate Justice Charlotte Anne Perretta". Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Retrieved April 13, 2020.
  3. Devlin, Emily (March 7, 2020). "Suffolk Firsts: Women's History Month". The Suffolk Journal. Retrieved April 13, 2020.
  4. "Dukakis ready to name 4 as appeals judges". The Boston Globe. November 15, 1978. p. 24 – via Newspapers.com.
  5. "Charlotte Anne Perretta". Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Retrieved April 13, 2020.
  6. "PERRETTA, Charlotte Anne". The Boston Globe. April 19, 2015. p. B9 – via Newspapers.com.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.