Tag: state supreme court

  • Rhode Island governor nominates two justices to state supreme court

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    Rhode Island Gov. Gina Raimondo (D) made her first and second nominations to the state Supreme Court on December 8, 2020. Raimondo nominated Erin Lynch Prata to succeed Justice Gilbert Indeglia, who retired on June 30, 2020, and Melissa Long to succeed Justice Francis Flaherty, who is retiring on December 31, 2020. Selection of Supreme…

  • Alaska Supreme Court Chief Justice to retire in June 2021

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    Alaska Supreme Court Chief Justice Joel Bolger is retiring on June 30, 2021. Bolger’s replacement will be Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s (R) second nominee to the five-member supreme court. Bolger joined the Alaska Supreme Court in 2013. He was appointed by Gov. Sean Parnell (R) to succeed Justice Walter Carpeneti. He became chief justice of the…

  • Georgia governor appoints LaGrua to state supreme court

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    Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp (R) appointed Shawn LaGrua to the Georgia Supreme Court on December 1, 2020. LaGrua succeeded Justice Keith Blackwell, who retired on November 18, 2020. LaGrua is Kemp’s second nominee to the nine-member supreme court. Under Georgia law, state supreme court justices are selected through nonpartisan elections. Justices serve six-year terms. Vacancies…

  • 2020 state supreme court election results

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    Thirty-five states held state supreme court elections in 2020. In total, 78 of the nation’s 344 state supreme court seats were up for election. At 23%, this was the greatest number of seats up for election in recent years. Of these seats, at the start of 2020: 59 were held by nonpartisan justices 12 were…

  • Retention elections and judicial partisanship

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    State supreme court justices facing retention elections won re-election more often than their counterparts in states using other systems of judicial selection, according to Ballotpedia’s recently-published study on state supreme courts. Between 2008 and 2019, 155 justices have faced retention elections. Incumbent justices won 152 (98%) of these elections. Since 2008, there have been 196…

  • Robert Carter fills vacancy on Illinois Supreme Court

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    Robert L. Carter became a justice of the Illinois Supreme Court on December 8, 2020. Carter was nominated to the court on November 10 to replace former Justice Thomas Kilbride, who lost the seat after failing to meet the 60% vote threshold required by Illinois law for judges to remain on the bench. Kilbride received…

  • Wendlandt sworn in as Massachusetts supreme court justice

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    Image of the John Adams Courthouse in Massachusetts

    On December 4, 2020, Dalila Wendlandt was sworn in as a new justice on the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, the state’s court of last resort. Wendlandt was nominated by Governor Charlie Baker (R) on November 3, 2020, and was the governor’s sixth nominee to the seven-member court.  Wendlandt succeeded Barbara Lenk, who retired on December…

  • 2020’s state supreme court elections resulted in changes on two of country’s least homogenous courts

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    The partisan makeup of two of the country’s most politically divided state supreme courts changed as a result of the 2020 elections, according to a Ballotpedia ranking of states by supreme court partisanship. As part of the Ballotpedia Courts: State Partisanship study, Ballotpedia assigned each state supreme court justice a partisan confidence score based on…

  • Massachusetts Supreme Court Justice Lenk retires

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    Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court Justice Barbara Lenk retired on Dec. 1, one day before she reached the mandatory retirement age of 70.  Governor Deval Patrick (D) appointed Lenk in April 2011, and she was the first openly gay justice on the court. Before her appointment, Lenk was a judge on the Massachusetts Appeals Court and…

  • New Mexico Supreme Court Justice Nakamura retires

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    New Mexico Supreme Court Justice Judith Nakamura retired on Dec. 1, 2020. She originally planned to retire on Aug. 1 but postponed her retirement date in June.  Governor Susana Martinez (R) appointed Nakamura to the court in November 2015. Prior to her appointment, Nakamura was a judge on the New Mexico Second Judicial District Court…