Former state justice Roaf dies

By The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette

Photo by Democrat-Gazette file photo

Andree Layton Roaf in a 1999 file photo

ADVERSTISMENT

LITTLE ROCK — Former Arkansas Court of Appeals Judge Andree Layton Roaf died Wednesday after losing consciousness in her Little Rock office.

Pulaski County Coroner Garland Camper said Roaf drove to Little Rock from her home in Pine Bluff feeling fine Wednesday morning, but felt ill as the day went on. Emergency medical personnel drove her to the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences hospital, where she died Wednesday afternoon.

Her husband and several staffers were at the hospital.

Andree Layton Roaf

Roaf, 68, became the first African-American woman and only the second woman to serve on the Arkansas Supreme Court when she was appointed by then-Gov. Jim Guy Tucker in January 1995. A year later she was appointed by Gov. Mike Huckabee to a judgeship on the Arkansas Court of Appeals, where she served until 2006.

In May 2007, Roaf was appointed director of the federal Office of Desegregation Monitoring to oversee the desegregation cases in Pulaski County.

Read tomorrow's Arkansas Democrat-Gazette for full details.

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