A 1969 graduate of St. Augustine High School (SAHS), Shelley Hartley Desvousges is a retired assistant district attorney and district court judge for North Carolina 10th Judicial District for Raleigh, North Carolina. A native of St. Augustine, Shelley is the daughter of Virgil and Frances Hartley. Her sister, Sue Hartley Wetherington, and two brothers, Michael and Wayne also graduated from SAHS.
Shelley attended Fullerwood Elementary School and Ketterlinus Junior High. Shelley enjoyed going to summer camp and swimming for the Y swim team during the summers. At SAHS, Shelley was involved in Pep Club, Sub-Jr Service League, Inter-Club Council, and Student Council. She was selected to attend Girls’ State. Shelley was voted Most School Spirited during her senior year by her classmates.
Shelley attended Florida State University, graduating in 1973 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Criminology. Shelley and her siblings are the first generation of college graduates in their family. She was involved in Student Government for a year at FSU. She and her husband, Bill, married after her junior year. After graduation, Shelley worked as a Social Worker in Missouri and North Carolina for ten years. During that time, Bill and Shelley welcomed their daughter, Anne, into the world.
Shelley started law school at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1984 and graduated in 1987. She worked as a staff attorney with the Social Security Administration, Office of Hearings and Appeals briefly before becoming Judicial Clerk for Honorable Robert F. Orr, a judge in the North Carolina Court of Appeals, for two-and-a-half years. Shelley became Assistant District Attorney, 10th Judicial District in Raleigh, North Carolina in 1991. She prosecuted all felonies, including white collar crimes, capital murders, and felony assaults. During those 11 years, she prosecuted several thousand cases in District Court and tried over 100 cases before juries in Superior Court. In 2003, Shelley was appointed by Governor Mike Easley to serve as a District Court Judge in the 10th Judicial District in North Carolina. Shelley retired in 2009 but continues to serve as an Emergency District Judge in North Carolina and received a lifetime commission from the governor to serve as a District Court Judge in North Carolina on an as-needed basis.
Active in professional organizations, Shelley has been involved with the Board of Directors for the Governor’s Task Force on Domestic Violence, 10th Judicial District Bar/Wake County Bar Association; the Bench/Bar and Professionalism Committees for the Wake County Bar Association; and the North Carolina Bar Association Practical Skills Committee, among others. She is still a member of the North Carolina Association of Women Attorneys. She was honored as the North Carolina Consumer Advocate of the Year in 2000 for her work with prosecution of individuals involved with scamming the elderly.
She’s has also been involved in her community as a St. Raphael Catholic Church Eucharistic minister and a volunteer with the St. Augustine Historical Society and with Community Hospice & Palliative Care with her registered pet therapy dog. Shelley is very active in outdoor sports. She has surfed in Hawaii on what she describes as ‘little waves’, biked in multiple U.S. and European locations, and hiked many trails, her favorite being Yosemite National Park.