Three women serve on Supreme Court

Three of seven state Supreme Court justices are women.

With Justice Bob Edmunds winning a second term in November, the women on the state's highest court remain Chief Justice Sarah Parker and associate justices Patricia Timmons-Goodson and Robin Hudson.

Although the positions are officially nonpartisan, all three are Democrats.

Timmons-Goodson and Hudson were elected in 2006.

A Supreme Court justice since 1992 and chief justice since 2006, Parker is the longest-sitting member of the current justices. She is also the third woman to serve as chief justice in North Carolina.

The first, Susie Sharp, was elected to that post in 1974, the first woman in the country to be elected the chief justice of a state supreme court. The second, Rhoda Billings, was appointed in 1986 but lost an election to the post that fall. Billings was the only Republican woman to serve on the court.

No other women have served on the N.C. Supreme Court.