Ruth V. McGregor, Arizona’s top judge, announces retirement
By JONATHAN J. COOPER
Cronkite News Service
PHOENIX (Monday, March 23) _ Ruth V. McGregor, chief justice of the Arizona Supreme Court, announced Monday that she will retire as of June 30, creating the first vacancy Gov. Jan Brewer will fill on the panel.
“It will be hard to leave the court,” she said during her State of the Judiciary address to lawmakers. “The work we do is challenging and meaningful, and the court has become my work family.”
McGregor said she is stepping down to spend more time with her family and to pursue other interests that she didn’t name.
“I do expect to remain involved with issues important to our judicial system, including the need to maintain judicial independence and our own merit system,” she added.
Brewer’s office didn’t immediately respond to two phone messages and an e-mail seeking comment on the retirement.
McGregor is respected nationally as an advocate for Arizona’s merit system of selecting judges, a system that reduces ideology and partisanship in judicial appointments, said Sally Rider, director of the William H. Rehnquist Center on the Constitutional Structures of Government at the University of Arizona’s law school.
“She has really enhanced the reputation of the Supreme Court of Arizona not only in being such a good judge but in being such a good spokesperson for the court,” Rider said.
Under the merit system, the governor fills judicial vacancies from a list of three candidates selected by a citizen commission. The system was approved by voters in 1974 and will be used to select McGregor’s replacement.
McGregor has been chief justice for three years and has served on the Supreme Court since 1998. Prior to being appointed by Gov. Jane Hull, McGregor was a judge on the Arizona Court of Appeals for five years, an employment attorney with Phoenix law firm Fennemore Craig and a law clerk for former U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor.