HELENA, Mont. (AP) - Karla Gray, the first female chief justice of the Montana Supreme Court, has died of cancer. She was 69.
Gov. Steve Bullock called Gray a champion for access to justice and a dedicated public servant.
Her work ethic, humor, humility and sense of justice have served as an inspiration for young lawyers in the state, Bullock said in a statement that noted he had ordered flags to be flown at half-staff in her honor.
Gray’s husband, Myron Currie, said she died at St. Peter’s Hospital in Helena.
“She faced a lot of medical challenges over the years and always did it with grace. She was a good person,” he told the Great Falls Tribune (gftrib.com/2m4icvM).
While Gray was chief justice, Montana’s judicial system was restructured with control of the district courts moving from counties to a branch under the Supreme Court.
Gray told Lee Newspapers of Montana in 2008 that the change made the courts run more efficiently and created greater opportunities for judges and others to receive statewide training.
Gray also spearheaded an effort to fast-track state Supreme Court cases involving child custody, especially when both parents were losing custody.
“These kids and their families need to have a final answer and move on into the future,” she told the newspaper group.
After law school, Gray came to Montana in 1977 to clerk for U.S. District Judge W.D. Murray in Butte.
Gray told Lee Newspapers that Murray believed he was bringing a black woman in for an interview, given her master’s degree in African history. Another judge had recently hired Montana’s first female law clerk and Murray was looking to make history, too, she said.
After a short interview, a drive around town and lunch, Gray said, Murray told her: “’Karla, you are a great disappointment to me. I was so sure you were going to be a black woman.’”
After a year as Murray’s clerk, Gray became an attorney for Atlantic Richfield Co., opened her own law office and went on to work as a lawyer and lobbyist for the Montana Power Co.
Gray was appointed to the Montana Supreme Court in 1991 by Gov. Stan Stephens.
“I don’t bring any personal agenda to the court except for fairness and impartiality in deliberating on the cases that come to the court,” Gray said upon her appointment.
She had to run for election in 1992 and was re-elected in 1998. She became the first woman elected chief justice in 2000, receiving 51 percent of the vote to 49 percent for fellow Justice Terry Trieweiler.
She retired in 2008 after 17 years on the court.
Gray was born on May 19, 1947, in Escanaba, Michigan. She received her bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Western Michigan University and her law degree from Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco.
No memorial service is planned, as was Gray’s wish, Currie said.
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