How do judges of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania reach the bench?

The court's current selection method is partisan election.

Supreme Court of Pennsylvania / Joined 1957 / Served to 1978

Benjamin R. Jones

Justice, Supreme Court of Pennsylvania

Benjamin R. Jones was a Justice of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, who joined the court in 1957. Opinions & record ↓ Sources ↓

Lived: 1906–1980
Tenure: 1957–1978 · 21 yrs

Judicial service

Year	Court	Appointed by	Vote
1957	Supreme Court of Pennsylvania	–	–

Education

Princeton University
University of the Pacific

Judicial Record

In our data, Jones authored 438 published opinions for the court (1967–1977), plus 65 dissents and 33 concurrences. Most cited: Berkebile v. Brantly Helicopter Corp. (412 citations).

Published, precedential opinions from the CourtListener corpus. Counts and rankings are objective and recomputable: how we count. We describe the record, not the judge. 536 of these were attributed to Jones by a unique court-, date-, and surname-match against our roster (marked ), because CourtListener recorded no author for them. Each links to the official text to verify. How we match.

Selected opinions

Year	Case	Citation	Cited
1975	Berkebile v. Brantly Helicopter Corp.†	337 A.2d 893	412
1974	Commonwealth v. Ingram†	455 Pa. 198	283
1975	In Re Adoption of McCray†	331 A.2d 652	272
1974	Gilbert v. Korvette's Inc.· Concurrence†	457 Pa. 602	260
1974	Kuisis v. Baldwin-Lima-Hamilton Corp.· Dissent†	457 Pa. 321	243
1977	Commonwealth v. Topa†	369 A.2d 1277	215
1975	Singer v. Sheppard†	346 A.2d 897	206
1972	Commonwealth v. Agie†	449 Pa. 187	185
1974	Commonwealth v. Rose· Concurrence†	457 Pa. 380	177
1970	Girsh Appeal· Dissent†	437 Pa. 237	167
1975	Roberts v. School Dist. of Scranton†	341 A.2d 475	161
1973	Commonwealth v. Hickman†	453 Pa. 427	161
1976	Gekas v. Shapp†	364 A.2d 691	153
1970	Concord Township Appeal· Dissent†	439 Pa. 466	148
1971	Kraynick v. HERTZ†	443 Pa. 105	140

Showing the 15 most-cited of 536 authored opinions in our data. “Cited” is inbound citations across the CourtListener corpus. Case links open the ruling’s full text (CourtListener) or its page here; read the methodology and verify against the primary source.

Questions & answers

How do judges of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania reach the bench?: The court's current selection method is partisan election.
Which court was Benjamin R. Jones on?: Benjamin R. Jones was a Justice of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania.

Sources

Each fact on this page traces to a primary public record.

How we source & reconcile data → Data & Sources

See something wrong? Report an error. Fixes are logged in the corrections log.

21 years on the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania. Data as of 2026-03-31. Informational only; verify against the primary source before relying. Not a consumer report (FCRA).