Jeffrey Amestoy

Jeffrey Amestoy (born July 24, 1946) is a former Vermont Attorney General and Chief Justice of the Vermont Supreme Court.

Born in Rutland, Vermont, Amestoy received a B.A. from Hobart College in Geneva, New York, his J.D. from Hastings Law School at the University of California, and his Master of Public Administration degree from Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government. He served in the United States Army Reserve from 1968 to 1974.

A Republican, Amestoy began a career in public service when he was appointed legal counsel for the Governor's Commission on the Administration of Justice in 1974. He served as an Assistant Attorney General from 1974 to 1981. In 1982 he was appointed Vermont's Commissioner of Labor and Industry, a position he held until becoming Attorney General.

In 1984 Amestoy ran successfully for Attorney General, defeating Bruce M. Lawlor in the general election. He served from 1985 to 1997, winning reelection in 1986, 1988, 1990, 1992, 1994 and 1996.

On January 10, 1997, Governor Howard Dean appointed Amestoy to serve as Chief Justice of the Vermont Supreme Court, following the retirement of Frederic W. Allen, and he was succeeded as Attorney General by William Sorrell.^[1]

As Chief Justice, Amestoy authored the opinion of the Vermont Supreme Court in Baker v. Vermont, 744 A.2d 864 (Vt. 1999), which held that the state's denial of marriage rights to same-sex couples violated the Vermont Constitution. The court ordered the Vermont legislature to either allow same-sex marriages or implement an alternative legal mechanism according similar rights to same-sex couples.^[2]

Amestoy retired from the court on June 16, 2004, and was succeeded as Chief Justice by Paul L. Reiber.^[3]

Amestoy returned to the Harvard Kennedy School in 2004 as a Fellow at the Institute of Politics. He was a Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School's Center for Public Leadership (2005-2014) and was instrumental in initiating the Executive Session on State Court Leaders in the 21st Century, a three-year project that brought together scholars and judicial leaders to examine the distinctive role of state court leaders in our democracy. Amestoy is the author of "The Politics of Restraint: State Judicial Leadership in the 21st Century" one of a series of papers written by members of the executive session.

Amestoy is the author of Slavish Shore: The Odyssey of Richard Henry Dana Jr. (Harvard University Press, 2015). His article "The Supreme Court Argument that Saved the Union: Richard Henry Dana Jr. and the Prize Cases" (Journal of Supreme Court History 2010) was awarded the Supreme Court Historical Society's Hughes-Gossett Prize.

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