“Meet Anna Hayes” on The State of Things

Our adoration and appreciation with WUNC’s “The State of Things” continues to grow on an almost weekly basis. Today, for instance, host Frank Stasio interviewed Anna Hayes on her new biography of Susie Marshall Sharp.

Hayes’ book, “Without Precedent: The Life and Times of Susie Marshall Sharp” looks at the life of the first woman judge in the state of North Carolina and the first woman in the United States to be elected chief justice of a state supreme court. When Susie Marshall Sharp retired in 1979 she left a legacy any judge would be proud to leave. Not only did she break new ground for women in the legal profession but she was known as a tireless proponent for lucidity in the law, honesty in judges, and humane conditions in prisons.

The book captures both the professional and the somewhat surprising personal life of Judge Sharp. Early reviews by colleagues and friends call the book “honestly written,” “well-documented,” and “deserv[ing of] a wide audience–not only among students of the state, but anyone interested in the life of a woman who succeeded in a male world.”

— Tom