Betty Joan Lester

1945 - 2021
Betty J. Lester, passed away peacefully at age 75 on Sunday, May 8, 2021 in Sarasota, Florida.

Betty was born Betty Joan Johnson in Bristol, Pennsylvania on October 14, 1945 to John and Ollie Johnson of Pulaski Tennessee. The fourth of six children, Betty was a smart and talkative child who loved to read. After graduating from Bristol High School, Betty enrolled in Howard University in Washington, D.C. where she met and married Althear Lester, a student at Howard Law School. Betty had their daughter, Alyse, during her final year in college and Betty and Althear graduated in May, 1968 from Howard University and Howard Law School, respectively with their infant daughter in their arms. Following her graduation from college, Betty directly enrolled in Rutgers Law School and earned her juris doctorate in 1972.

During her time at Rutgers Law School, Betty was one of five women in the inaugural class of the Minority Student Program and co-founded the Concerned Legal Associates, which later became the Garden State Bar Association.

Upon graduation, Betty worked in the New Jersey Public Defender's Office in Newark, where she represented defendants charged with violations of state criminal laws. At one point in her career as a defense attorney, she won 29 consecutive jury acquittals for her clients.

In 1977, Mayor Kenneth Gibson appointed Betty to the Newark Municipal Court as a trial judge at the age of thirty one and she was promoted several years later to Presiding Judge where she supervised a panel of nine municipal trial judges. Later in 1985, Governor Thomas Kean appointed Betty to the Superior Court of the State of New Jersey. With these two appointments, Betty earned the distinction of being the first African American female Presiding Judge in Essex County and the second African American female judge to be appointed to the Superior Court in New Jersey.

Later in her career, she was promoted to the position of Presiding Judge of the Superior Court, Criminal Division where she supervised approximately twenty five trial judges. After thirty two years of service to the judiciary, Betty retired from the bench in 2009 and relocated with her husband to Sarasota, Florida and became a seasonal resident of Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts.

During her judicial career, Betty was a member of the New Jersey State Bar Association, the Essex County Bar Association, and the National Association of Women Judges.

Betty is survived by Althear, her beloved husband of 52 years; their daughter Alyse; her siblings John, Marie, Wilmer and O'Linda; her grandchildren Jaden and Sophia; her son in law Gordon; and many other family and friends.