Audrey Melbourne Dies

By Claudia Levy
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, June 13, 2000; Page B05

Audrey Earnshaw Melbourne, 69, the first woman appointed to a full-fledged judgeship in Prince George's County, died of pneumonia June 11 at Howard County General Hospital. She had a respiratory ailment.

Judge Melbourne, who lived in Columbia, was a judge for two decades. She retired in 1997 from the Circuit Court in Upper Marlboro.

Among her more controversial decisions was one limiting a homosexual father's right to see his children. It was reversed in 1994 by the Maryland Court of Special Appeals.

In 1984, Judge Melbourne drew criticism for her ruling in the case of Joseph Simpson, who, in view of his three children, had shot his estranged wife five times in the back, paralyzing her. The judge found Simpson not guilty of attempted murder by reason of insanity. He was released later that year from the Clifton T. Perkins state hospital for the criminally insane.

For the first 15 years of her career, Judge Melbourne practiced law in Laurel, where she handled several high-profile horse racing industry cases. In one that drew wide publicity, she successfully defended the right of Kathy Kushner to be licensed as one of the first female jockeys, after Kushner was turned down by the Maryland Racing Commission because of her sex.

Judge Melbourne also helped break down barriers for women who wanted to ride in steeplechases and defended jockeys accused of race fixing.

In the late 1970s, she was nominated by the Prince George's County Bar Association for a judgeship on the county's District Court--only 12 years after the state and county bar associations began admitting women--and was appointed by then-acting Maryland Gov. Blair Lee. The only other woman to have sat on the Prince George's bench was a trial magistrate.

Judge Melbourne was a native of Chicago. She attended Roanoke College and graduated from George Washington University and the University of Maryland law school.

In addition to her bar association memberships, she belonged to the Iron Bridge Hunt Club and the Soroptimist Club of Laurel and was the latter organization's Woman of the Year in the late 1970s.

Her marriages to James Cook, Joseph Aitcheson and P.G. Melbourne III ended in divorce.

Survivors include a son from her first marriage, Thomas Alan Melbourne of Annapolis, who was adopted by her third husband; three children from her third marriage, Carter Earnshaw Melbourne of Laurel, Andrea Melbourne of Columbia and Jane Bailey of Ellicott City; and four grandchildren.