Fairfax County Circuit Court Chief Judge Penney S. Azcarate will be honored by the local Board of Supervisors ahead of her retirement later this summer.
The 10-member board voted unanimously Tuesday (April 14) to prepare a resolution honoring Azcarate, who will retire June 31 after nearly 20 years as a judge in Fairfax County — including the last 10 as chief judge of the Circuit Court.
Franconia District Supervisor Rodney Lusk introduced the board matter, which was jointly led by board Chairman Jeff McKay.
“I’m happy to second that with a lot of members of the board who recognize the great work she has done,” McKay said.
After nearly a decade as an attorney, Azcarate was appointed to the county’s General District Court in 2005 and, later, becoming the court’s first female chief judge.
Azcarate served there for nearly a decade before she was elevated to her current position, again becoming the first female judge in the history of the Circuit Court in 2015.
“It has been the privilege of my lifetime to serve here, to lead here, and now — with the same humility I had on my first day — to make room for the next generation of leadership,” she said in November at the county’s “State of the Judiciary” luncheon.
Azcarate is perhaps best known for presiding over the Johnny Depp v. Amber Heard defamation trial in 2022, drawing enough national acclaim to be parodied on the long-running animated sitcom South Park.
She also recently presided over the criminal cases of Brendan Banfield and Juliana Peres Magalhaes, who respectively faced murder and manslaughter charges for the 2024 killings of Banfield’s wife and another man.
Locally, Azcarate’s impact stretches far beyond her rulings inside the courtroom.
In 2014, she implemented a veterans treatment docket, which tailors its judicial approach to the unique needs of military veterans, many of whom suffer from co-occurring mental health disorders.
She herself is a veteran, having served in the U.S. Marine Corps — including in the Gulf War — before attending law school.
“With only 1% of our population wearing the uniform, you have a system of military personnel going out on deployment four or six times,” she told the Washington Post in 2014. “This has an amazing impact on your mental health, and it’s unprecedented in our history — 22 suicides a day. We have to learn how to deal with this epidemic.”
Azcarate also spearheaded the county’s drug treatment court for nonviolent offenders, providing “cost-effective, research-based interventions that integrate treatment and court supervision” for those struggling with drug use.
“You never realize how much of your life you have poured into something until you begin the gentle work of letting go,” Azcarate said in November.
“In that process, you get an awareness that none of this has ever been about titles or corner offices or where your name appears on the letterhead,” she added. “It is about the people you walked this path with, and the lives touched quietly along the way.”
Photo via Fairfax County Government/Flickr
