How do judges of the Rhode Island Supreme Court reach the bench?

The court's current selection method is gubernatorial appointment.

Rhode Island Supreme Court / Joined 1929 / Served to 1935

Charles Stearns

Justice, Rhode Island Supreme Court

Charles Stearns was a Justice of the Rhode Island Supreme Court, who joined the court in 1929. Opinions & record ↓ Sources ↓

Lived: 1866–1946
Tenure: 1929–1935 · 6 yrs

Judicial service

Year	Court	Appointed by	Vote
1929	Rhode Island Supreme Court	–	–

Education

Harvard University

Judicial Record

In our data, Stearns authored 264 published opinions for the court (1917–1934), plus 6 dissents. Most cited: State of Rhode Island v. Fenik (37 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. 1 of these was attributed to Stearns 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
1923	State of Rhode Island v. Fenik	121 A. 218	37
1922	Atkinson v. Birmingham· Dissent	116 A. 205	19
1926	Brady v. Norwich Union Fire Insurance Society, Ltd.	133 A. 799	17
1933	Reynolds v. Reynolds	166 A. 686	16
1934	Leonard Levin Co. v. Star Jewelry Co., Inc.	175 A. 651	15
1928	Orabona v. Linscott	144 A. 52	15
1934	National India Rubber Co. v. Kilroe	173 A. 86	14
1929	Lacroix v. Frechette	145 A. 314	14
1917	Home Insurance Co. v. Union Trust Co.	100 A. 1010	14
1924	Viall v. Rhode Island Hospital Trust Co.	123 A. 570	13
1932	Grenon v. Metropolitan Life Insurance	161 A. 229	12
1931	Bomes v. Providence Local No. 223	155 A. 581	12
1931	Smith v. Bradford	154 A. 272	12
1929	Kernan v. Webb	148 A. 186	12
1929	Franklin Service Stations, Inc. v. Sterling Motor Truck Co.	147 A. 754	12

Showing the 15 most-cited of 270 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 Rhode Island Supreme Court reach the bench?: The court's current selection method is gubernatorial appointment.
Which court was Charles Stearns on?: Charles Stearns was a Justice of the Rhode Island Supreme Court.

Sources

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

How we source & reconcile data → Data & Sources

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