Betty Cantrell Roberts was a politician and judge in the U.S. state of
Oregon died from pulmonary fibrosis he was , 88.. She was the 83rd
Associate Justice of the
Oregon Supreme Court, the highest state court in Oregon. She was the first woman on the
Oregon Supreme Court, and had also been the first woman on the
Oregon Court of Appeals. Roberts served from 1982 to 1986 on the high court and from 1977 to 1982 on the Court of Appeals.
A native of
Kansas and raised in
Texas, Roberts had previously been elected to both chambers of the
Oregon Legislative Assembly, but lost bids for the
governor's office and the
United States Senate, both in 1974. She was married three times, including to Frank Roberts and Keith Skelton, both of whom she would serve with in the
Oregon State Legislature. She was a private mediator and senior judge until her death due to
pulmonary fibrosis.
(February 5, 1923–June 25, 2011)
Early life
Betty Cantrell was born in
Arkansas City, Kansas, on February 5, 1923.
[1][2] When she was six, her father became partially paralyzed and the family moved to Texas to be near her mother's family.
[2] In Texas, Roberts was raised poor during the
Great Depression of the 1930s.
[2][3] She graduated from high school and then attended
Texas Wesleyan College in
Ft. Worth for one year starting in 1940.
[4] She married Bill Rice, a young soldier from Oregon during World War II in 1942 who was stationed at
Sheppard Field.
[2][3] After the war they moved to Oregon where Bill was a banker, with the family living in Klamath Falls, Lakeview, Gresham, and La Grande.
[5] By the 1950s Roberts was the mother of four children, Sharon (Dian), John, Jr., Jo, and Randy.
[3]
Roberts enrolled at
Eastern Oregon College in La Grande for a single year in 1955.
[6] After the family moved to Portland, she enrolled at
Portland State College where she graduated in 1958 with a bachelor of science degree in education.
[2][3][4] From 1958 to 1967, Roberts taught high school in the
Portland metropolitan area at
Reynolds High School,
Centennial High School, and
David Douglas High School before moving on to teach business law and political science at
Mt. Hood Community College from 1967 to 1976.
[2][4][7] She and Bill Rice divorced in 1959.
[8] She became a member of the Lynch Elementary School District school board, serving from 1960 to 1966.
[4] She married
Frank Roberts in 1960, adopting his name and retaining it after their divorce in 1965.
[8]
Roberts went on to earn a
masters degree in political science from the
University of Oregon in 1962.
[4] She then attended Northwestern School of Law (now
Lewis & Clark Law School) in Portland where she graduated in 1966 with her Juris Doctor.
[4] She earned her degree while attending evening classes at the school, much like she earned her early degrees.
[2][3] During this time she was still teaching high school and successfully ran for a seat in Oregon's
House of Representatives.
[3]
Political career
Elected in 1964 to the Oregon House as a Democrat from
Multnomah County, Roberts won re-election in 1966.
[9][10] In 1968, she won election to the
Oregon Senate representing Multnomah County in District 12,
[11] and was the only woman in the
Oregon Senate at that time.
[3][12] That same year she married fellow legislator
Keith D. Skelton, but retained the Roberts surname.
[6] However, the
Oregon State Bar,
The Oregonian newspaper, and the state elections division refused to abide by her decision.
[6] She threatened legal action, and eventually was no longer referred to as Mrs.
Betty Skelton.
[6] While in the Senate she was a cosponsor of the
Oregon Bottle Bill that passed in 1971, the first of its kind in the nation.
[7] In 1972, Roberts was re-elected to the Senate for another four-year term.
[13][14]
In 1974, Roberts ran for
governor of Oregon (the fifth woman to do so), but lost in the Democratic primary to
Robert W. Straub.
[7] Later that year, following the death of Democratic nominee
Wayne Morse, she was picked by the Democratic Party to run on the November ballot for the
1974 Oregon United States Senate, an unsuccessful bid against incumbent
Bob Packwood.
[7] In 1975, she was named the Education Citizen of the Year Award by the
Oregon Education Association[4] and the Woman of the Year by the Oregon Women’s Political Caucus.
[3] The next year the Oregon Conference of Seventh Day Adventists gave her their Liberty Award.
[4] During this time Roberts also served as a delegate to the
Democratic National Convention in 1968, 1972, and 1976, while also practicing law at the firm Skelton & Roberts from 1967 to 1977.
[4] She served as the Oregon chairperson for
Jimmy Carter's Presidential campaign in 1976.
[4]
Judicial career
When this court gives Oregon law an interpretation corresponding to a federal opinion, our decision remains the Oregon law even when federal doctrine later changes.
Roberts' opinion in State v. Caraher, 293 Or. 741 (1982).[15] On September 1, 1977,
Oregon Governor Straub, a former opponent, appointed Roberts to the
Oregon Court of Appeals to a new position, along with
W. Michael Gillette,
George M. Joseph, and
John Buttler, when the court expanded from six to ten positions.
[7][16][17] Roberts was the first woman on that court, as well as the first on any
appellate court in Oregon.
[6][18] The next year she was up for election to retain her seat on the court, and won the election to a full six-year term.
[17] While on the court she faced
discrimination from some judges due to her gender, as the Chief Judge had been against the nomination of a woman to the court.
[6]
Prior to completing her term on the court, Roberts resigned on February 8, 1982, when she was appointed by Governor
Victor G. Atiyeh to the
Oregon Supreme Court.
[16][19] She was appointed to replace the retiring
Thomas Tongue on Oregon's highest court, where she was again the first woman on that court.
[7][19] She then won election to a full six-year term on the court later in 1982.
[19] In 1982, she wrote the opinion in
State v. Charles (293 Or. 273), which adopted the
duty to retreat in Oregon.
[20] This requires people to attempt to retreat in most situations before one could use deadly force, even in self defense.
[20] That same year she wrote the opinion in the workers' compensation case,
Hewitt v. SAIF, that men and women have equal rights under the
Oregon Constitution, and so effectively gave Oregon an Equal Rights Amendment.
[21][22]
Roberts was the sole dissenting justice in
Bank of Oregon v. Independent News (298 Ore. 434), when the court ruled that banks were not public figures, making it easier for banks and their officials to
sue journalists for libel.
[23] While on the bench Roberts was recognized by both the
University of Oregon and
Portland State University for distinguished service.
[4] On February 7, 1986,
[19] she resigned her position on the court.
[24] Roberts left in part due to the heavy workload of the job, in part due to the daily commute between her home in Portland and the
Oregon Supreme Court Building in Salem, partly due to the stress of the job, and in part because her husband was retiring and asked her to travel with him.
[24]
Later years and family
Robert's marriage to Keith Skelton lasted until his death on October 23, 1995.
[25] In 1986, Oregon's
Mary Leonard Law Society for women attorneys gave Roberts their Distinguished Service Award,
[3] and the following year the
Oregon State Bar Association granted her an Award of Merit,
[26] with the Oregon
American Civil Liberties Union awarding her a Civil Liberties Award.
[27] After leaving the Oregon Supreme Court she was asked to help broker a settlement in a case by the Chief Justice, which led to a career in alternative dispute resolution, primarily as an mediator, but also as an arbitrator.
[28]
During
Robert Bork’s U.S. Supreme Court nomination she helped organize opposition to the nomination in Oregon.
[29] From 1988 to 1991 she was a visiting professor in political science at
Oregon State University.
[4] In 1988, she received recognition from
Portland State University,
Oregon State University, and
Lewis & Clark Law School.
[4][30] She also served on the state's Commission on Higher Education in the late 1980s.
[31] In 1992, Roberts was given the award bearing her name from the Oregon Women Lawyers.
[3] She earned the E. B. MacNaughton Civil Liberties Award from the ACLU in 2004.
[4]
In March 2004, she presided over the first legal
same-sex marriage in Oregon that was held during a brief period when
Multnomah County issued marriage licenses to people of the same-sex.
[32][33][34][35][36][37] In 2006, the
American Bar Association awarded her the Margaret Brent Award from its Commission on Women in the Profession.
[38] As of 2008, Roberts served as a private
mediator in the Portland area,
[1][8] and was a senior judge in Oregon, subject to recall to serve as a temporary judge.
[39] Her autobiography,
With Grit and By Grace, Breaking Trails in Politics and Law, was published in 2008.
[5]
Roberts died in her Portland home of
pulmonary fibrosis on June 25, 2011. Representative
Earl Blumenauer stated "She was one of a kind.... for over a quarter century, Betty Roberts had as much impact on the political process as anyone in Oregon."
[40]
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Alice Playten was an American actress and singer died from heart failure she was , 63.. 
Playten's screen credits include Ladybug Ladybug, I.Q., and Legend. She wore heavy makeup and prosthetics in Legend to portray the character of 'Blixx', a major minion of the Lord of Darkness; she also dubbed the voice of Gump. She did voice work in several animated features, including Felix the Cat, Really Rosie, Heavy Metal, Doug, Doug's 1st Movie and My Little Pony: The Movie.
