Elizabeth Weaver (March 28, 1941 – April 21, 2015) was a justice of the

Michigan Supreme Court The Michigan Supreme Court is the highest court in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is Michigan's court of last resort and consists of seven justices. The Court is located in the Michigan Hall of Justice at 925 Ottawa Street in Lansing, the sta ...

from 1995 to 2010 and served as chief justice from 1999 to 2001.

Life

Weaver was born in

New Orleans New Orleans ( , ,New Orleans

Louisiana Louisiana , group=pronunciation (French: ''La Louisiane'') is a state in the Deep South and South Central regions of the United States. It is the 20th-smallest by area and the 25th most populous of the 50 U.S. states. Louisiana is borde ...

. She received her

Bachelor of Arts Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four year ...

degree in 1962 from

H. Sophie Newcomb Memorial College H. Sophie Newcomb Memorial College, or Newcomb College, was the coordinate women's college of Tulane University located in New Orleans, in the U.S. state of Louisiana. It was founded by Josephine Louise Newcomb in 1886 in memory of her daughter ...

. In 1965, she received her Juris Doctor from

Tulane University Law School Tulane University Law School is the law school of Tulane University. It is located on Tulane's Uptown campus in New Orleans, Louisiana. Established in 1847, it is the 12th oldest law school in the United States. In addition to the usual common ...

and was admitted to the Louisiana bar. During law school, she was an editor of the ''

Tulane Law Review The ''Tulane Law Review'', a publication of the Tulane University Law School, was founded in 1916, and is currently published five times annually. The Law Review has an international circulation and is one of few American law reviews carried by ...

.'' After graduating from Tulane, she began her practice working with the Chevron Corporation and a private law firm in New Orleans. She eventually relocated to

Michigan Michigan () is a U.S. state, state in the Great Lakes region, Great Lakes region of the Upper Midwest, upper Midwestern United States. With a population of nearly 10.12 million and an area of nearly , Michigan is the List of U.S. states and ...

, where she taught

first grade First grade (also called Grade One, called ''Year 2'' in England or Primary 2 in Scotland) is the first grade in elementary school and the first school year after kindergarten. Children are usually 6–7 years old in this grade. Examples by ...

and served as the dean of girls at

The Leelanau School The Leelanau School is a co-educational non-profit boarding high school located in Glen Arbor, Michigan. The school was founded in 1929 and has a historical association with Christian Science. The school is a small, college-preparatory school wi ...

Glen Arbor Glen Arbor Township is a civil township of Leelanau County in the U.S. state of Michigan. The population was 859 at the 2010 census. However, the population of the town expands rapidly during the summer months as a result of it being a summe ...

. In 1973, Weaver was admitted to the Michigan bar. In 1974, she was elected as Leelanau County's

probate court A probate court (sometimes called a surrogate court) is a court that has competence in a jurisdiction to deal with matters of probate and the administration of estates. In some jurisdictions, such courts may be referred to as Orphans' Courts o ...

judge. In 1987, she was elected to the

Michigan Court of Appeals The Michigan Court of Appeals is the intermediate-level appellate court of the state of Michigan. It was created by the Michigan Constitution of 1963, and commenced operations in 1965. Its opinions are reported both in an official publication of ...

and was re-elected in 1992.Michigan Court History - Justices Biographies: Elizabeth Weaver
/ref> She is the author (with David B. Schock, Ph.D.) of ''Judicial Deceit: Tyranny and Unnecessary Secrecy at the Michigan Supreme Court'', a telling of the history of the court during her tenure. Her contention was that the court had been overtaken in its thought by appointees of former Governor John M. Engler. During her tenure other members of what she called the Engler Four roundly attacked her, even to the point of trying to silence her public comment with a gag order, Administrativ

During her time at the high court she remained steadfast that the people of Michigan had a right to know what was going on at the court as long as the matter at hand was not pending or impending an outlined i
Canon 3A (6) of the Michigan Code of Judicial Conduct
Even after she left the court she was a staunch critic of behavior of the other justices in revealing racist comments made but Robert Preston Young, Jr., at the time of his re-election in 2010, the court made an ill-fated attempt to censure her. They sent her a letter telling her that she was censured without apparently remembering that the Michigan Supreme Court can censure ONLY on the recommendation of the state Judicial Tenure Commission
per the State Constitution of Michigan of 1963, Article VI, Section 30
, something that had not happened. In publishing her book in 2013, Weaver noted that it was the last remaining obligation she had to the citizens of Michigan. Weaver died on April 21, 2015, in her Glen Arbor home. She was 74.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Weaver, Elizabeth 1941 births 2015 deaths People from New Orleans Tulane University Law School alumni Louisiana lawyers Michigan lawyers Educators from Michigan American women educators Chief Justices of the Michigan Supreme Court Michigan Court of Appeals judges Michigan state court judges Educators from Louisiana 20th-century American judges 20th-century American lawyers 20th-century American women judges 21st-century American women Justices of the Michigan Supreme Court 21st-century American women judges 21st-century American judges