How do judges of the Court of Appeals of Texas reach the bench?

The court's current selection method is partisan election.

Court of Appeals of Texas / Joined 2015 / Served to 2024

Bonnie Sudderth

Chief Justice, Court of Appeals of Texas

Bonnie Sudderth was a Chief Justice of the Court of Appeals of Texas, who joined the court in 2015. She previously served on the Texas 352nd Judicial District Court. Opinions & record ↓ Sources ↓

Born: 1959 · age 67
Tenure: 2015–2024 · 9 yrs

Judicial service

Year	Court	Appointed by	Vote
1996	Texas 352nd Judicial District Court	–	–
2015	Court of Appeals of Texas	–	–
2017	Court of Appeals of Texas	–	–
2017	Court of Appeals of Texas	–	–
2019	Court of Appeals of Texas	–	–

Education

University of Southern California	Public Affairs and Public Administration, magna cum laude	1982
The University of Texas at Austin		1985
Duke University		2020

Judicial Record

In our data, Sudderth authored 32 published opinions for the court (2015–2018), plus 3 dissents and 4 concurrences. Most cited: in the Interest of S.T., a Child (72 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. 39 of these were attributed to Sudderth 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
2015	in the Interest of S.T., a Child†	508 S.W.3d 482	72
2017	Van Der Linden v. Khan†	535 S.W.3d 179	60
2017	in Re Rico Daniel Reardon†	514 S.W.3d 919	27
2017	Alaimo v. U.S. Bank Trust Nat'l Ass'n†	551 S.W.3d 212	23
2018	McGibney v. Rauhauser†	549 S.W.3d 816	22
2017	Moody v. State†	551 S.W.3d 167	22
2015	David K. Norvelle and Sylvia D. Norvelle v. PNC Mortgage, a Division of PNC Bank, National Association†	472 S.W.3d 444	22
2017	Braylon Dominique Ellis v. State†	517 S.W.3d 922	21
2016	Josh and Kelli Savering, Chattanya Chavda, Pannaben Nancha, Phillip and Lisa Klotz, Paul Arseneau, Allison Blackstein, and Jack A. Muhlbeier v. City of Mansfield· Dissent†	505 S.W.3d 33	21
2016	Ex parte Shires†	508 S.W.3d 856	20
2015	Thomas Lester Harper v. State†	508 S.W.3d 461	18
2017	Bedford Internet Office Space, LLC v. Texas Insurance Group, Inc.†	537 S.W.3d 717	16
2017	Norhill Energy LLC v. McDaniel†	517 S.W.3d 910	15
2017	In re G.B.†	524 S.W.3d 906	14
2016	Leticia Bleil v. State†	496 S.W.3d 194	14

Showing the 15 most-cited of 39 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 Court of Appeals of Texas reach the bench?: The court's current selection method is partisan election.
Which court was Bonnie Sudderth on?: Bonnie Sudderth was a Chief Justice of the Court of Appeals of Texas.

Sources

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

How we source & reconcile data → Data & Sources

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