Julia Kurtz Tackett, one of Kentucky’s first female judges and prosecutors, dies at 70

Judge Julia Kurtz Tackett, 70, Kentucky’s longest-serving female judge at the time of her retirement in 2006, died Wednesday at her home in Versailles.

Tackett, one of six women in the University of Kentucky College of Law’s class of 1971, went on to become one of Kentucky’s first female judges and prosecutors. She served six consecutive terms as a Fayette District Court judge, beginning in 1977.

In 1999, she was elected appellate judge for the fifth regional district of the Kentucky Court of Appeals, a position she held until she retired.

Before her judicial career, Tackett spent two years as an assistant commonwealth’s attorney under Fayette County Commonwealth Attorney Pat Molloy. She also served as a public defender in the federal court system for the Eastern District of Kentucky, and she was a law clerk for the chief justice of the Kentucky Court of Appeals, now known as the state Supreme Court.

She was inducted into the UK law school’s Hall of Fame in 2006.

Tackett was a former member of the UK board of trustees and served on the boards of a number of organizations, including KET and the Kentucky Blood Center.

Tackett was born in Morganfield to the late George and Jane Shaffer Kurtz and graduated from Sturgis High School.

She is survived by a son, John L. Tackett of Lexington, and a daughter, Sarah E. Tackett of Nashville.

Services will be at 11 a.m. Dec. 10 at Central Christian Church, where she was a longtime member and deacon. Visitation will be from 1 p.m. to 7 p.m. Friday at Kerr Brothers Funeral Home on Harrodsburg Road.

This story was originally published December 3, 2016 at 6:25 PM with the headline "Julia Kurtz Tackett, one of Kentucky’s first female judges and prosecutors, dies at 70."