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

The court's current selection method is merit selection with retention.

Nebraska Supreme Court / Joined 1993 / Served to 1996

David J. Lanphier

Justice, Nebraska Supreme Court

David J. Lanphier was a Justice of the Nebraska Supreme Court, who joined the court in 1993. Opinions & record ↓ Sources ↓

Born: 1945 · age 81
Tenure: 1993–1996 · 3 yrs

Judicial service

Year	Court	Appointed by	Vote
1993	Nebraska Supreme Court	–	–

Education

Creighton University
Fordham University

Judicial Record

In our data, Lanphier authored 20 published opinions for the court (1993–1996), plus 12 dissents and 5 concurrences. Most cited: State v. Pierce (153 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. 37 of these were attributed to Lanphier 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
1995	State v. Pierce†	537 N.W.2d 323	153
1994	State Ex Rel. Reitz v. Ringer†	510 N.W.2d 294	98
1996	Reavis v. Solminski†	551 N.W.2d 528	72
1995	Smith v. State, Dept. of Motor Vehicles†	535 N.W.2d 694	69
1993	Schieffer v. Catholic Archdiocese of Omaha· Dissent†	508 N.W.2d 907	61
1993	Vredeveld v. Clark· Concurrence†	504 N.W.2d 292	54
1996	Torrison Ex Rel. Torrison v. Overman· Concurrence†	549 N.W.2d 124	51
1995	Lee Sapp Leasing, Inc. v. Catholic Archbishop of Omaha†	540 N.W.2d 101	46
1996	Rainbolt v. State†	550 N.W.2d 341	45
1995	Barks v. Cosgriff Co.· Dissent†	529 N.W.2d 749	44
1995	State v. Skalberg· Concurrence†	526 N.W.2d 67	39
1995	Davis Erection Co., Inc. v. Jorgensen· Dissent†	534 N.W.2d 746	36
1993	Hamilton v. City of Omaha· Dissent†	498 N.W.2d 555	36
1996	State Ex Rel. Stenberg v. Moore· Concurrence†	544 N.W.2d 344	35
1996	Watts v. Watts· Concurrence†	547 N.W.2d 466	31

Showing the 15 most-cited of 37 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 Nebraska Supreme Court reach the bench?: The court's current selection method is merit selection with retention.
Which court was David J. Lanphier on?: David J. Lanphier was a Justice of the Nebraska 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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3 years on the Nebraska Supreme Court. Data as of 2026-03-31. Informational only; verify against the primary source before relying. Not a consumer report (FCRA).