Delaware Supreme Court

Delaware Supreme Court
Court information
Justices:	5
Founded:	1951
Judicial selection
Method:	Comm. select., Gov. appt.
Term:	12 years
Active justices
Randy Holland  •  Myron Steele  •  Carolyn Berger  •  Henry Ridgely  •  Jack Jacobs  •
Former justices

Founded in 1951, the Delaware Supreme Court is the state's court of last resort.

Justices

The current justices of the court are:

Judge	Term	Appointed by	Party
Justice Randy Holland	1986-2023	Michael Castle
Chief Justice Myron Steele	2000-2016	Thomas R. Carper
Justice Carolyn Berger	1994-2018	Thomas Carper
Justice Henry Ridgely	2004-2016	Ruth Ann Minner
Justice Jack Jacobs	2003-2015	Ruth Ann Minner

Jurisdiction

The Delaware Constitution gives the Supreme Court appellate jurisdiction in most criminal cases for final judgments that have already been decided by lower courts. It also gives the Court discretionary jurisdiction to issue writs of prohibition, quo warranto, certiorari, mandamus and certified questions.

Judicial selection

See also: Judicial selection in Delaware

Judges are selected using the commission selection, political appointment method, where the Judicial Selection Commission forwards a list of candidates to the Governor. The Governor of Delaware then appoints a candidate who must then be confirmed by the Delaware General Assembly. Justices serve renewable twelve year terms. Three of the justices must represent one of the major political parties while the other two justices must be members of the other major political party.

Qualifications

Minimum qualifications for appointment to the court are:

• Be licensed to practice law in the state.
• Be learned in the citizens of Delaware.
• Be a Member of the Delaware Bar Association.

Removal of Justices

Judges may be removed in one of two ways:

• Impeached by a majority vote from the Delaware House of Representatives and convicted by two thirds of the Delaware State Senate.
• Removed, retired, or disciplined by a two-thirds vote of the Court on the Judiciary.

Caseloads

Fiscal Year	Criminal appeals	Civic appeals	Original applications	Total number of filings	Total number of dispositions
2010	410	304	39	770	724
2009	382	263	24	685	705
2008	344	268	37	670	661
2007	210	178	53	655	668

Salaries

The Associate Justices of the court receive $185,050 annually, while the Chief Justice makes $194,750.

Notable decisions

• Genger v. TR Investors, July 2011

In Genger v. TR Investors the Delaware Supreme Court issued an important ruling on the matter of electronic records and discovery. The case stemmed from a case heard by the Court of Chancery in 2009 where now-Chief Chancellor Leo E. Strine, Jr. ordered the defendant, Arie Genger, to preserve information on his hard drive. Genger had his tech expert run a program that wiped all files from the unallocated free space on his hard drive and the TRI servers. This "unallocated free space" is the space on a computer not dedicated to running programs or applications and what the computer will use for temporary storage. Genger claimed that he was just attempting to preserve the privacy of his personal files. TRI claimed that he had violated the order to preserve information on the hard drives, Strine agreed, and sanctioned Genger, ordering him to pay TRI $3.2 million.

On appeal, the Supreme Court upheld Strine's sanction, finding that Genger had taken steps to destroy information he had been ordered to preserve. The court also addressed more largely the matter of unallocated free space. Justice Jacobs wrote, "To avoid future repetitions of the 'unallocated free space' issue presented here we suggest that the parties and the trial court address any unallocated free space question that might arise before a document retention and preservation order is put in place.In addressing that issue, the parties must be mindful that court-ordered discovery of electronically-stored information should be limited to what is 'reasonably accessible.' That determination, by its very nature, must be made on a case-by-case basis."

Taken from Delaware Supreme Court issues important e-discovery ruling

History of the court

Prior to the 1951 constitutional amendment establishment of the Delaware Supreme Court there was not an established court of last resort. The "left over judge system" was used from 1897 until 1951. In this system any judge who did not originally hear the case would gather together and exercise final jurisdiction. When founded in 1951 the court had three justices which was later expanded to five justices in 1978.

Notable firsts

• Justice Carolyn Berger is the first female to serve on the court.
• Justice Randy Holland is the youngest person to serve on the court, and is also the only justice to be retained three times.

See also

• Courts in Delaware
• Judicial selection in Delaware
• Delaware judicial news
• Delaware blogs

External links

• Delaware Supreme Court Official Site
• Delaware Corporate and Commercial Litigation Blog

References

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