AnnuAl RepORT - Supreme Court - State of Ohio

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November 2
Dec. 10
November 2
Dec. 10
November 2
Dec. 10
November 2
Year
Some years it is difficult to pick one event that stands out from all the other
significant happenings over a 12-month period. Understandably, 2010 was
not one of those years.
On April 2, the Supreme Court family and the legal and judicial
communities in Ohio unexpectedly lost Chief Justice Thomas J. Moyer, eight
months shy of the end of his fourth and final six-year term on the Court.
Necessarily, his untimely passing resulted in changes in the makeup and in the
leadership of the Supreme Court that made 2010 a year in transition.
According to the Ohio Constitution, the most senior member of the Court at
the time of the Chief Justice’s death serves as Acting Chief Justice. Justice Paul
E. Pfeifer filled that role for about a month, until Eric Brown, former Franklin
County Probate Court judge, appointed April 14 by Gov. Ted Strickland to
complete the Chief’s term, began serving as Chief Justice May 3.
In addition to the re-election of Justice Pfeifer and Justice Judith Ann Lanzinger
to their fourth and second terms, respectively, Ohio voters elected Justice Maureen
O’Connor on Nov. 2 to become the first woman Chief Justice in the 207-year
history of the state.
Another historic milestone was reached on Dec. 10 with the appointment of
former judge Yvette McGee Brown as the first African-American woman Justice to
serve on the Supreme Court and fill Justice O’Connor’s unexpired seat as Justice at
the start of 2011.
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