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

The court's current selection method is partisan election.

Supreme Court of Texas / Joined 1945 / Served to 1947

C S. Slatton

Justice, Supreme Court of Texas

C S. Slatton was a Justice of the Supreme Court of Texas, who joined the court in 1945. Opinions & record ↓ Sources ↓

Born: 1895 · age 131
Tenure: 1945–1947 · 2 yrs

Judicial service

Year	Court	Appointed by	Vote
1945	Supreme Court of Texas	–	–

Education

University of Connecticut-Stamford

Judicial Record

In our data, Slatton authored 49 published opinions for the court (1940–1947), plus 5 dissents. Most cited: Trapp v. Shell Oil Co. (275 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. 9 of these were attributed to Slatton 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
1946	Trapp v. Shell Oil Co.	198 S.W.2d 424	275
1942	Victory v. State of Texas	158 S.W.2d 760	162
1945	Luling Oil & Gas Co. v. Humble Oil & Refining Co.	191 S.W.2d 716	143
1947	City of Beaumont v. Moore· Dissent†	146 Tex. 46	111
1943	Hutchings v. Slemons	174 S.W.2d 487	109
1947	Texas & New Orleans Railroad v. Burden†	146 Tex. 109	108
1945	Binford v. Snyder	189 S.W.2d 471	105
1946	Boyd v. Frost National Bank of S.A.· Dissent	196 S.W.2d 497	98
1940	Markowsky v. Newman	136 S.W.2d 808	96
1944	State of Texas v. Balli	190 S.W.2d 71	86
1946	Texas Employers' Insurance v. Holmes· Dissent	196 S.W.2d 390	69
1943	Talley v. Howsley	176 S.W.2d 159	68
1946	Triangle Cab Co. v. Taylor	192 S.W.2d 143	65
1947	Guadalupe-Blanco River Authority v. City of San Antonio· Dissent†	145 Tex. 611	56
1947	Heard v. State· Dissent†	146 Tex. 139	53

Showing the 15 most-cited of 54 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 Texas reach the bench?: The court's current selection method is partisan election.
Which court was C S. Slatton on?: C S. Slatton was a Justice of the Supreme Court of Texas.

Sources

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

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