Judge Penny Lee Blackwell

YORK- Penny Lee Blackwell, a York County Common Pleas Judge who lived a life of service, died on August 5, 2023, at Country Meadows. She was 74. Her death was due to complications of Parkinson’s and Lewy Body Dementia.

Penny loved life and lived it fully. She was born in 1948 in Panama to parents serving in the US Armed Forces. When she was 8, Penny and her 3 younger brothers were tragically orphaned. Penny became the head of the family mothering her brothers in a Texas Orphanage for 3 years. Their strong bond was negated, when a Judge, who did not look at or talk with Penny ordered the children to live in different families. In this major life moment, Penny decided to become a Judge dedicating her life to steering the justice system to be more respectful and kinder to all who interacted with it.

In 1959, Penny was court ordered to live with distant kin in Oregon who were unequipped to take care of a child. She found peace in tending to many animals ranging from a monkey to a chihuahua, playing volleyball and teaching herself how to race motorcycles. She won trophies for motorcycle hill climbing and traveled to Hawaii to train with the Olympic volleyball team.

Penny valued education throughout her life. She put herself through school by working many jobs such as cleaning movie theaters to writing columns for Ranger Rick magazine. She graduated from Portland State University and American University with a JD. After law school Penny became one of the first Environmental Protection Agency attorneys stationed in Philadelphia, where she worked tirelessly to enforce laws designed to support the longevity of our planet while feeling the pain of the economic toll on families and communities factory closures could cause.

After meeting her love, Dr. John Sanstead, the two wed on April 15, 1978 and soon moved to York, PA. Penny took a short break from practicing law to start her family. In 1982, Penny partnered with Dan Wolfson to create Wolfson and Blackwell attorneys at law. Their law firm grew beyond the partnership to provide general legal counsel to many.

She served on local boards and was president of a few including the Junior League.

Penny ran unsuccessfully for election to the bench in 1988. She learned a lot from this experience and got to know the York County community by eating many variations of chicken corn soup. She stayed true to her dream and ran again in 1993 becoming the second female elected to the York County bench and one of the few registered Democrats elected to County wide office in York.

Judge Blackwell was eager to serve in family court, which is a position often dreaded by judges taking the bench because of the gut-wrenching decisions that must be made regarding young children. She worked hard to know all of the facts and commonly had attorneys and caseworkers over to her home to hear emergency matters on whether or not to remove a child from their home. In addition to family court, Judge Blackwell presided over many different types of legal matters such as mental health commitment hearings, criminal hearings, and estate disputes – always making sure to look at the people appearing before her. She also loved naturalizing new citizens and performing marriages.

Judge Blackwell implemented upstream interventions to serve people and not just process them through the legal maze. Highlights of this were bringing Treatment Courts to York County and creating a program to have therapy dogs in her courtroom to ease the anxieties that some of the defendants felt.

In 2015 she had the honor of swearing in Governor Tom Wolf.

Judge Blackwell will be missed by many including her dear husband Jack Sanstead who fed her every night during her last years, and their daughter Rebecca Sanstead and her husband Matt Sommer, and grandchildren, Cadel and Vivian. Judge Blackwell’s long time support dog Cooper will appreciate pets as he howls with grief. The family is incredibly grateful for the staff at Country Meadows and Hospice for helping Penny feel at home in the last years of her life.

A visitation with the family will be held from 5-7 p.m. on Thursday, August 10 at Heffner Funeral Chapel & Crematory, Inc., 1551 Kenneth Rd., York with a private burial to follow Friday at Prospect Hill Cemetery. A celebration of life will be held at the Unitarian Universalist Church of York, 925 S. George St., York on Saturday, August 19th at 1:30 p.m. This will be broadcast via zoom.

In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions may be made to the Penny Blackwell fund at the York Bar Association to continue her life’s work to bring light to all who interact with the Judicial System.

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