Montana Supreme Court - Court Composition and Selection

Court Composition and Selection

The Montana Supreme Court presently consists of a Chief Justice and six Associate Justices. The Montana Constitution provides for only four Associate Justices, but allows the Montana Legislature to increase the number of Associate Justices to six. Each justice is elected for an eight-year term in a statewide, nonpartisan election. The terms are staggered so that no more than two seats on the court are scheduled for election at the same time. When a sitting justice runs unopposed, voters cast a "yes" or "no" vote as to whether to retain them. If the seat on the court is contested, the top two vote-getters in the primary election are selected as the final candidates.

Read more about this topic:  Montana Supreme Court

Famous quotes containing the words court, composition and/or selection:

    “Follow a shaddow, it still flies you;
    Seeme to flye it, it will pursue:
    So court a mistris, shee denyes you;
    Let her alone, shee will court you.
    Say, are not women truely, then,
    Stil’d but the shaddowes of us men?
    At morne, and even, shades are longest;
    At noone, they are or short, or none:
    So men at weakest, they are strongest,
    But grant us perfect, they’re not knowne.
    Say, are not women truely, then,
    Stil’d but the shaddowes of us men?”
    —Ben Jonson (1572–1637)

    “The composition of a tragedy requires testicles.”
    —Voltaire [François Marie Arouet] (1694–1778)

    “Historians will have to face the fact that natural selection determined the evolution of cultures in the same manner as it did that of species.”
    —Konrad Lorenz (1903–1989)