Ellen Ash Peters, first female chief justice of Connecticut Supreme Court, dies at 94

By DAVE COLLINS
Associated Press

HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) — Ellen Ash Peters, the first woman to serve as Connecticut’s chief justice, has died. She was 94. The Connecticut Judicial Branch says Peters passed away Tuesday. The cause and location of her death have not been disclosed. Peters was also the first female faculty member at Yale Law School. She was appointed to the Supreme Court in 1978 and served as chief justice from 1984 to 1996. She wrote the majority opinion in the landmark 1996 Sheff v. O’Neill case that declared segregation of Hartford-area schools to be unconstitutional. In 1995, she wrote the majority opinion in a ruling that upheld the state’s ban on assault weapons.