Dorothy Beasley

Credit to Rosie Manins, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, May 25, 2024:

"Judge Dorothy Toth Beasley shattered glass ceilings in Georgia courts, argued landmark cases of national importance, helped establish Atlanta’s pioneering food-rescue project for the hungry and counted U.S. Supreme Court Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sandra Day O’Connor as friends.

Born Oct. 5, 1937, in Passaic, New Jersey, Beasley was raised in nearby Garfield with her younger sisters Virginia Toth Palmer and Stephanie Toth Wells. Their father, Stephen Toth, was an attorney and judge. Their mother, Beatrice Dodd Toth, a secretary.

After studying American history and government and graduating in 1959 from St. Lawrence University in New York, Beasley briefly worked at the State Department in Washington, D.C. She then got a women’s scholarship to attend the American University Washington College of Law. At the time, women were generally not hired as attorneys and Beasley was one of only a few females in her class.

Upon graduating, she got a job clerking for judges in a trial court in Arlington, Virginia, then worked as an associate at the law firm Shadyac, Berg & Nolen. After marrying William Beasley in 1967, she moved with him to Atlanta, where she worked for the firm Fisher & Phillips. Beasley went to work for then-Georgia Attorney General Arthur Bolton, where she was assigned to the criminal division and argued five cases before the U.S. Supreme Court on the state’s behalf.

One of those cases, Doe v. Bolton, saw Georgia’s abortion law struck down on the same day in 1973 that the court decided its better known companion case Roe v. Wade. A year earlier, Beasley had argued the landmark Furman v. Georgia case, in which the Supreme Court invalidated all existing death penalty laws.

Beasley also served as a federal prosecutor in the Northern District of Georgia before becoming the first female judge of the Fulton County State Court in 1977, appointed by then-Gov. George Busbee. She spent seven years on the Fulton bench, introducing to the county the concept of community service as a criminal sentence.

In 1984, Beasley was appointed by then-Gov. Joe Frank Harris as the first woman on the Georgia Court of Appeals, becoming the state’s first female appellate judge. She became the court’s first female chief judge in 1995 and resigned four years later, having spent almost all her time on the bench surrounded by men.

After leaving the bench, Beasley briefly worked at the National Center for State Courts in Virginia, running its international division to enhance justice systems and services globally. She then returned to Atlanta and spent more than a decade as an arbitrator and mediator at Henning Mediation & Arbitration Service.

During that time, Beasley earned a Master of Laws degree in international law from Emory University School of Law and served with the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. She received Emory Law’s trailblazer award in 2018 and two years later its award for lifetime commitment to public service.

Ms. Beasley’s charity work was extensive. In the 1980s, she co-founded Atlanta’s Table, the project of the Atlanta Community Food Bank that provides hot meals for the hungry with food from the city’s restaurants, hotels and caterers. The concept was one of the first of its kind in the country.

Beasley served on multiple professional organizations and also helped to resettle refugees through Lutheran Services of Georgia, now known as Inspiritus. She supported civics education programs, advocated for public health, raised awareness of child sex trafficking, and hosted a writer’s roundtable at the Lenbrook senior community in Buckhead, where she lived from 2020."

Ms. Beasley is survived by her youngest sister, Stephanie Wells. In accordance with her wishes, her body was cremated. In lieu of flowers, donations should be made to Lutheran World Relief, Goshen Family Ranch or Atlanta's Community Food Bank.

Whitley Garner at Rosehaven is honored to be entrusted with the arrangements of Dorothy Beasley.

Read the full AJC article here:

https://www.ajc.com/news/georgias-first-female-appellate-judge-blazed-trails-on-and-off-the-bench/CCSW6X7RBZBQJHGEX4A2DUM4UM/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=ajcnews_fb