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

The court's current selection method is nonpartisan election.

Supreme Court of Kentucky / Joined 1976 / Served to 1983

Boyce G. Clayton

Justice, Supreme Court of Kentucky

Boyce G. Clayton was a Justice of the Supreme Court of Kentucky, who joined the court in 1976. Opinions & record ↓ Sources ↓

Born: 1912 · age 114
Tenure: 1976–1983 · 7 yrs

Judicial service

Year	Court	Appointed by	Vote
1976	Supreme Court of Kentucky	–	–

Judicial Record

In our data, Clayton authored 79 published opinions for the court (1976–1982), plus 22 dissents and 1 concurrence. Most cited: Pari-Mutuel Clerks' Union of Kentucky, Local 541, SEIU, AFL-CIO Ex Rel. Mann v. Kentucky Jockey Club (95 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. 73 of these were attributed to Clayton 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
1977	Pari-Mutuel Clerks' Union of Kentucky, Local 541, SEIU, AFL-CIO Ex Rel. Mann v. Kentucky Jockey Club	551 S.W.2d 801	95
1982	O'Bryan v. Commonwealth· Dissent†	634 S.W.2d 153	83
1977	Kimbrough v. Commonwealth	550 S.W.2d 525	66
1980	Smith v. Commonwealth· Dissent†	599 S.W.2d 900	61
1982	Reams v. Stutler	642 S.W.2d 586	56
1978	Whorton v. Commonwealth· Dissent†	570 S.W.2d 627	48
1977	Kentucky Ass'n of Chiropractors v. Jefferson County Medical Society	549 S.W.2d 817	47
1976	Buckler v. Commonwealth	541 S.W.2d 935	46
1979	Wagner v. Commonwealth· Dissent†	581 S.W.2d 352	43
1978	Campbell v. Commonwealth	564 S.W.2d 528	42
1977	Spencer v. Commonwealth	554 S.W.2d 355	41
1977	Edwards v. Commonwealth	554 S.W.2d 380	39
1980	Seay v. Commonwealth	609 S.W.2d 128	38
1980	Hudson v. Commonwealth· Dissent†	597 S.W.2d 610	35
1978	Williams v. Commonwealth	569 S.W.2d 139	34

Showing the 15 most-cited of 102 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 Kentucky reach the bench?: The court's current selection method is nonpartisan election.
Which court was Boyce G. Clayton on?: Boyce G. Clayton was a Justice of the Supreme Court of Kentucky.

Sources

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

How we source & reconcile data → Data & Sources

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