Contact:
Lorri Montgomery
Director of Communications
National Center for State Courts
757.259.1525
lmontgomery@ncsc.dni.us
Pennsylvania
Chief Justice
Recipient of National Award for Judicial Innovation
Williamsburg,
VA (Nov. 8, 2007) – Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania Ralph J. Cappy has
been named the 2007 recipient of the Harry L. Carrico Award for
Judicial Innovation presented by the National Center for State Courts
(NCSC). Chief Justice of South Carolina Jean Hoefer Toal, chair of the
NCSC’s Board of Directors, presented Chief Justice Cappy the award
today in Philadelphia during the annual conference of the National
Association of Women Judges.
Chief
Justice Cappy was selected because “he has earned a reputation for
being fair, thoughtful, and forward thinking,” said NCSC President
Mary C. McQueen. “Chief Justice Cappy’s work in the area of
improving judicial education has served as a national model. He is a
leader in the court community for his contributions to making the
justice system more efficient and transparent,” McQueen said.
The
award is named after retired Virginia Chief Justice Harry L. Carrico,
who was instrumental in founding the National Center for State Courts in
1971. Chief Justice Carrico served on the National Center’s Board of
Directors from 1987 to 1990, serving as chair from 1989 - 1990. The
award – created in 2003 when Chief Justice Carrico retired – was
established to honor a sitting state court chief justice or justice who
has inspired, sponsored, promoted, or led an innovation of national
significance in the field of judicial administration.
All of which, Chief Justice Cappy has
achieved. After being named Chief Justice of Pennsylvania in 2003, he
set out to improve the fairness, efficiency, and security of the
state’s courts and to make them transparent and accountable to the
public. To accomplish this, Chief Justice Cappy launched several
initiatives, including: co-founding the Interbranch Commission for
Gender, Racial and Ethnic Fairness whose goal is to assure access and
fair treatment for everyone; upgrading the quality of continuing
judicial education for all judicial officers in the state; and setting
qualifying standards for defense lawyers in death penalty cases in order
to guarantee fair delivery of justice.
Chief Justice Cappy has a long and
distinguished legal career. After graduating from the University of
Pittsburgh School of Law in 1968, he became an Assistant Public Defender
and later the Chief Public Defender of Allegheny County. In 1978, he
became a judge of the Common Pleas Court in Allegheny County where he
served in the Family, Civil, and Criminal divisions. He was appointed
Administrative Judge of the Civil Division in 1986. He joined the
Pennsylvania Supreme Court in 1990 and has served on the court for 18
years, the last five as Chief Justice.
The
National Center for State Courts, headquartered in Williamsburg, Va., is
a non-profit court reform organization dedicated to improving the
administration of justice by providing leadership and service to the
state courts. The National Center, founded in 1971 by the
Conference of Chief Justices and Chief Justice of the United States
Warren E. Burger, provides education, training, and technology,
management, and research services to the nation’s state courts.
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National
Center
for State Courts, 300 Newport Avenue, Williamsburg,
VA
23185-4147
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