Hathaway is first woman elected to serve as president judge
It took nearly 200 years for a woman to be elected judge in Westmoreland County.
On Wednesday, 35 years after Donetta Ambrose broke the gender barrier on the local bench, the county's 10 full-time judges chose Rita Hathaway as the first woman elected to serve as president judge.
Hathaway, 67, of Murrysville will take over as the administrative head of the local court in January.
“I am very honored and very excited,” Hathaway said.
The job of president judge is a five-year term and typically has been held by the most-senior member of the bench. Hathaway was first elected judge in 1997, and, if retained by county voters in November for another 10-year term, will be the county's longest-tenured judge in January after the planned retirement of current President Judge Richard E. McCormick Jr. McCormick will continue to serve as president judge until his retirement.
Westmoreland County Bar Association historian Lou DeRose said no woman has ever held the post dating to the first recorded occupant of the office in 1785.
“It's always good when we get a new president judge, but this is a great thing for us. This is quite an occasion,” DeRose said.
Few women have been elected judge in Westmoreland County history — and none before 1982, when Ambrose, then a New Kensington lawyer, was elected to the court. She was appointed as a federal judge a decade later.
Today, three women serve as Common Pleas Court judges in Westmoreland County: Hathaway, Judge Meagan Bilik-Defazio and Judge Michele Bononi.
According to a report issued this year by the Administrative Office of Pennsylvania Courts, women account for 29 percent of judges in the state, including 138 on the Common Pleas courts.
The president judges of the Commonwealth Court and Superior Court are currently women.
The president judge in Westmoreland County earns $180,427, about $1,500 more than the other Common Pleas court judges.
As president judge, Hathaway will be responsible for the administrative duties of the courts and assignments for judges and will oversee court-related functions such the probation and domestic relations departments.
Hathaway declined to discuss any substantive agenda for the courts until she officially takes over as president judge but said one item at the top of her to-do list is to assign another judge to the criminal court division, which has operated with a vacancy for the past several years because of illness, retirements and a death.
Westmoreland County's Common Pleas Court bench, when fully staffed, operates with 11 judges. It has 10 full-time judges following the death last year of Judge Debra Pezze. Her replacement will be elected in the fall and take office in January. But the county court will still operate with one vacancy next year after McCormick's retirement.
Hathaway was born and raised in Boston and moved to Westmoreland County in 1979, when she started work as a third-grade teacher before attending law school in 1985. She was hired as a Westmoreland County assistant district attorney in 1988 and served about a decade as a prosecutor in the office.
Rich Cholodofsky is a Tribune-Review staff writer. Reach him at 724-830-6293 or rcholodofsky@tribweb.com.
