Supreme Court of Texas

Article Contents

Jurisdiction
Elections and Term of Office
Qualifications
Current Members
Motto and Seal
Court Staff
How Cases Are Decided
Case Documents and Videos
Recent News Coverage

The Supreme Court of Texas is the highest civil appeals court in the State of Texas. It consists of eight justices and a chief justice.

Jurisdiction

The Supreme Court of Texas decides civil cases appealed from lower courts throughout the state, including from the 14 regional Texas Courts of Appeals.

The court does not hear criminal matters except in juvenile cases. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has final jurisdiction in criminal cases. Texas is one of only two states with a bifurcated appeals system of this kind.

Other responsibilities of the court include overseeing the State Bar, appointing members of the Board of Law Examiners, and setting rules of civil procedure, rules of evidence, and other standards used in courtrooms statewide.

The court normally meets in Austin, but the state constitution allows it to “sit at any time during the year at the seat of government or, at the court’s discretion, at any other location in this state for the transaction of business…”

Elections and Term of Office

Texas Supreme Court justices are elected in partisan statewide elections, unless appointed to fill a vacancy. They serve staggered six-year terms, with three justices up for election every two years.

When a vacancy arises on the court, the governor may appoint a justice to serve the remainder of the unexpired term, subject to confirmation by the Texas Senate. In practice, many justices retire before the end of their final term, allowing the governor to appoint a successor who then runs for reelection as an incumbent.

In effect, this means that the Texas system of judicial selection is a hybrid between an appointive system and an elective one.

Qualifications

According to Article 5, Section 2 of the Texas Constitution, justices must be:

at least 35 years old
a citizen of the United States
a resident of Texas
licensed to practice law in Texas
have practiced law for at least ten years, or have been a judge for at least ten years.

Current Members

Current justices of the Supreme Court of Texas

The current justices of the court are:

Place 1: Nathan Hecht (chief justice)
Place 2: Jimmy Blacklock
Place 3: Debra Lehrmann
Place 4: John Phillip Devine
Place 5: Rebeca Aizpuru Huddle
Place 6: Jane Bland
Place 7: Jeffrey S. Boyd
Place 8: Brett Busby
Place 9: Evan Young

All current members of the Texas Supreme Court are Republicans.

Motto and Seal

The seal of the Supreme Court of Texas depicts the scales of justice within the shape of a five-pointed star, which is a symbol of Texas, around which are printed the name of the court.

The motto of the court is “Sicut Patribus, Sit Deus Nobis,” a Latin phrase meaning “May God be with us, as he was with our fathers”

Court Staff

The staff of the Supreme Court are organized into nine chambers, each serving one justice, plus an administrative staff and clerk’s office that serve the court as a whole.

Each chambers staff consists of an executive assistant, a permanent staff attorney, and two law clerks, who are usually recent law school graduates and serve a one-year term.

The staff attorneys and law clerks assist the justice with legal research, opinion drafting, cite checking, and analysis of the hundreds of petitions for review the court receives each year.

Administratively, the court is overseen by a chief clerk, who is appointed by the justices and serves a four-year term. The chief clerk oversees, assisted by several depities, receives and processes electronic filings and interfaces with the public.

Finally, the Supreme Court also employs more than a dozen staff in support of two permanent commissions, the Judicial Commission for Children, Youth and Families, and the Texas Judicial Commission on Mental Health.

In total, the court employs approximately 82 staff members, including the nine justices.

Organizational chart for the court, FY 2022-2023

How Cases Are Decided

After hearing oral arguments, the Supreme Court justices individually study cases before meeting to discuss them. These meetings usually occur monthly and are called “conference.”

Chief Justice Nathan Hecht discusses the court’s conference practice

After conference, justices cast votes to decide cases:

Case Documents and Videos

The Supreme Court publishes all relevant case documents on its website, accessible to the public, as well as all of its orders and opinions.

Videos of its meetings and oral arguments are available online through a partnership with the State Bar.

The court normally holds oral arguments once a month on three consecutive days. On each day that oral arguments are held, the court usually hears three separate cases. Each side is allotted 20 minutes to argue, for a total of 40 minutes of argument per case, with a 10 minute break between the arguments.