Juanita Kidd Stout (March 7, 1919 – August 21, 1998) was an American attorney and jurist who served as a justice of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania from 1988 to 1989. She had previously operated a private legal practice in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
After working in the District Attorney's office, where Stout was known for her successful prosecutions, she was appointed on an interim basis to the municipal court bench in 1959, becoming the first African-American woman to serve as a judge in the state. Elected that year to the municipal court, she was the first African-American woman elected to any judgeship in the United States. When she was appointed to the state's supreme court, Stout was the first African-American woman to serve on the supreme court of any state.
She first attended Lincoln University, a historically black college in Jefferson City, Missouri, and later completed her bachelor's degree in music at the University of Iowa. She returned to Oklahoma to work as a music teacher. Stout was also a member of Delta Sigma Theta sorority.
During World War II, she joined other young women and went to Washington, D.C., to work. At a law firm, she discovered skills in taking legal dictation and started to study law. She earned two law degrees at Indiana University.
She later was appointed to the Court of Common Pleas, where she specialized in homicide cases. In 1988 she was appointed to the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, the first African-American woman in the United States to serve on the supreme court of any state. She served for one year before obligatory retirement at age 70.
Personal life
Stout met her husband, Charles Otis Stout, while attending law school in Indiana. Stout’s husband died in 1988. Stout died in Philadelphia in 1998.
Legacy and honors
- Stout was inducted into the Oklahoma Women's Hall of Fame in 1983.
- In 2012, a Philadelphia, Pennsylvania city courthouse was renamed as the Justice Juanita Kidd Stout Center for Criminal Justice in her honor.
See also
- List of African-American jurists
- List of first women lawyers and judges in Pennsylvania