Anne E. Lazarus (born November 12, 1952) is an American lawyer and jurist who currently serves as the President Judge of the Superior Court of Pennsylvania. A member of the Democratic Party, Lazarus was elected to the Superior Court on November 3, 2009. She is the first woman from Philadelphia to be elected to any statewide office.
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Early life and education
Anne E. Lazarus was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1952, making her the oldest judge on the Superior Court.
Lazarus received her B.A. degree in psychology from the State University of New York at Stony Brook in 1972. She then received her J.D. and M.L. from the Temple University Beasley School of Law in 1976 and 1986, respectively.
Legal career
Lazarus served as legal counsel to the Philadelphia Orphans’ Court from 1980 to 1991. She practiced law in Philadelphia at Ballard Spahr Andrews & Ingersoll, LLP until she received an appointment by Governor Robert Casey Sr. to Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas. She was elected to the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas for a full term in 1991, and served until 2010 when she joined the Superior Court of Pennsylvania.
Lazarus has received numerous awards during her tenure; including the Philadelphia Bar Association's Sandra Day O’Connor Award in 2013, and the Pennsylvania Bar Association's Anne X. Alpern Award in 2018.
Lazarus ran for the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania in 2015, but failed during the primary by not achieving a position in the top three candidates.
Lazarus ran for retention to the Superior Court of Pennsylvania in 2019, and was retained for second ten-year term. Her current term ends January 7, 2030.
Lazarus was voted on by the Superior Court of Pennsylvania to serve as the President Judge, which she assumed office for on January 7, 2024. The Superior Court was unanimous in their selection of Judge Lazarus as President Judge.
Notable cases
In the case of Commonwealth v. Alexander (2020), Lazarus and two other judges from the Superior Court upheld Markee Davis' conviction. In January 2020, an officer pulled over Davis for recklessly driving and saw a semi-automatic handgun on the floor of the vehicle. Davis was arrested for numerous charges, including possession of a controlled substance. The trial court granted the suppression and exclusion of Davis' statements and the marijuana found in the trunk of the car, but denied suppression of the handgun. The Superior Court upheld Davis' conviction, further ruling that the officer's seize of the firearm was lawful. The court ruled that the commonwealth was not required to prove exigent circumstances when an officer is seizing a firearm in a vehicle under the plain view doctrine. Lazarus, who authored the opinion of the Court, stated,To the extent that Davis claims Alexander requires the Commonwealth to prove exigent circumstances where the officers have lawfully seized an object under the plain view doctrine, he is mistaken.In the case of Commonwealth v. Ganjeh (2023), Lazarus was on a three-member panel of Superior Court judges that denied an appeal by Dana Ganjeh, a man who is serving a life without parole sentence for murdering a Linda Frick, a 54-year-old woman whose body was found deceased in August 2018.