Beasley to address local Democrats
(pictured above: Justice Cheri Beasley is seeking another term.)
N.C. Supreme Court Justice Cheri Beasley will discuss “The Importance of Voter Participation in Electing Judges in North Carolina” when she addresses the Forsyth County Senior Democrats on Thursday, Aug. 7 at the Golden Corral, 4965 University Parkway. Members and guests wanting the breakfast buffet and/or beverages will be able to enter the restaurant beginning at 8:30 a.m. The meeting, which is free and open to the public, will start at 9 a.m.
Beasley was appointed by Gov. Beverly Perdue to serve as an associate justice on the Supreme Court in 2012. She is up for reelection this fall. Prior to her appointment, she served as an associate judge on the North Carolina Court of Appeals. When she was elected to the Court of Appeals in 2008, Beasley became the only African American woman elected to any statewide office in North Carolina without the benefit of incumbency or an appointment by the governor.
She served for nearly 10 years as a District Court judge in the 12th Judicial District of Cumberland County. Gov. Jim Hunt initially appointed her to the District Court bench in 1999; she was subsequently elected and reelected.
She is also a former 12th Judicial District assistant public defender.
Beasley has lectured at New District Court Judges School at UNC-CH School of Government, at Appellate Advocacy and Trial Advocacy classes at UNC School of Law and NCCU School of Law and to law enforcement and other court personnel. She was on the faculty of National Institute for Trial Advocacy.
Justice Beasley holds memberships in the American Bar Association, Appellate Judicial Division, N.C. Bar Association (serving on several committees), Cumberland County Bar Association, Wake County Bar Association, Junior League of Raleigh and a host of other organizations. Justice Beasley is a 2012 Henry Toll Fellow of the Council on State Governments and the recipient of numerous awards.
In December 1991, Beasley graduated from the University of Tennessee College of Law in Knoxville after completing a summer of law studies at Oxford University in England.
She is a graduate of Douglass College of Rutgers University, where she majored in economics and political science.
She is married to Curtis Owens, a clinical research scientist. They are the proud parents of twin sons, Thomas and Matthew, who are eighth-graders, and members of First Baptist Church of Raleigh and First Baptist Church of Fayetteville.
