North Dakota Supreme Court

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North Dakota Supreme Court
Court information
Justices:	5
Founded:	1861
Judicial selection
Method:	Non-partisan election of judges
Term:	10 years
Active justices
Mary Muehlen Maring  •  Gerald VandeWalle  •  Dale Sandstrom  •  Carol Ronning Kapsner  •  Daniel Crothers  •
Former justices

The North Dakota Supreme Court is the highest court in the state of North Dakota.

Justices

The current justices of the court are:

Judge	Term	Appointed by	Party
Justice Mary Muehlen Maring	2008-2018	Ed Schafer
Chief Justice Gerald VandeWalle	1978-2014	Arthur A. Link
Justice Dale Sandstrom	1992-2016
Justice Carol Ronning Kapsner	1998-2021	Ed Schafer
Justice Daniel Crothers	2005-2022	Gov. John Hoeven

Chief justice

Gerald VandeWalle is the chief justice of the North Dakota Supreme Court. Justice VandeWalle was appointed to the state Supreme Court in August 1978, by Governor Arthur Link, a Democratic governor. Since that appointment, VandeWalle has been elected to the high court three times, and selected chief justice by his colleagues four times. His current term ends in 2014. The Chief Justice is elected every five years by vote of the Supreme Court justices and the District Court justices. In the case of a vacancy, the Governor may appoint the replacement to serve two years prior to the general election.

Jurisdiction

According to the constitution of North Dakota, "The supreme court shall be the highest court of the state. It shall have appellate jurisdiction, and shall also have original jurisdiction with authority to issue, hear, and determine such original and remedial writs as may be necessary to properly exercise its jurisdiction." In its adjudicative capacity, the Supreme Court is primarily an appellate court with jurisdiction to hear appeals from decisions of the district courts.

Judicial selection

The five justices on the court are elected to ten-year terms in nonpartisan elections.

Qualifications

According to the North Dakota constitution, "Supreme court justices and district court judges shall be citizens of the United States and residents of this state, shall be learned in the law, and shall possess any additional qualifications prescribed by law. Judges of other courts shall be selected for such terms and shall have such qualifications as may be prescribed by law."

Caseloads

Year	New filings	Cases transferred to Court of Appeals	Civil dispositions by opinion	Criminal dispositions by opinion	Civil dispositions by order	Criminal dispositions by order
2010	402	0	198	91	63	47
2009	367	0	166	89	63	41
2008	342	0	184	98	50	31
2007	366	4	136	90	45	60
2006	362	0	205	116	66	48

Salaries

As of 2010, the Associate Justices earn $130,228 annually and the Chief Justice earns $133,968.

Notable decisions

History of the court

North Dakota state capitol in Bismarck, which houses the North Dakota Supreme Court

The Supreme Court of the Dakota Territory was created in the Territorial capital of Yankton in 1861. The court consisted of three justices, Chief Justice Philemon Bliss and associate justices George Williston and Joseph Williams. Many of the early justices of the Territory were appointed by Presidents Lincoln and Grant. In 1879, a fourth justice was added to the court; the size of the court increased two more times, once in 1884 to six justices, and again in 1888 to eight. The Constitution of the state was adopted in 1889. By 1930, a Constitutional Amendment increased the length of terms for justices to 10 years.

Notable firsts

See also

• North Dakota Court of Appeals
• North Dakota judicial news
• North Dakota blogs
• News: Economic growth case to come before state Supreme Court, May 31, 2011
• News: North Dakota Supreme Court to hear hitman's appeal, August 15, 2011
• News: North Dakota Supreme Court asked to overturn conviction, September 12, 2011
• News: North Dakota Supreme Court rules in unlawful deer killing case, October 20, 2011

External links

• North Dakota Supreme Court Official Site
• List of Territorial Justices
• rcfp.org "N.D. high court considers limiting online court records" October 25, 2011
• the Associated Press, "North Dakota Supreme Court OKs blocking some digital records," December 25, 2011
• The Associated Press, "ND Supreme Court says girl can sue Washburn Public Schools over janitor conduct," December 17, 2011

References

Portions of this article have been taken from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Copyright Notice can be found here.

2012

To organize the columns, click on the arrows in the column heading.

Candidate	Incumbency	Office	Primary Vote	Election Vote
CrothersDaniel Crothers   A	Yes			99.15%   A

2010

See also: 2010 State Supreme Court elections

Carol Ronning Kapsner stood for retention and was retained.

North Dakota Supreme Court 2010 General election results
Candidates		Votes	Percent
Carol Ronning Kapsner		n/a	n/a

2008

See also: State Supreme Court elections, 2008

Mary Muehlen Maring ran uncontested and was elected.

North Dakota Supreme Court 2008 General election results
Candidates		Votes	Percent
Mary Muehlen Maring		n/a	n/a

Daniel Crothers ran uncontested and was elected.

North Dakota Supreme Court 2008 General election results
Candidates		Votes	Percent
Daniel J. Crothers		n/a	n/a