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

The court's current selection method is nonpartisan election.

Michigan Supreme Court / Joined 1986 / Served to 1990

Dennis W. Archer

Justice, Michigan Supreme Court

Dennis W. Archer was a Justice of the Michigan Supreme Court, who joined the court in 1986. Opinions & record ↓ Sources ↓

Born: 1942 · age 84
Tenure: 1986–1990 · 4 yrs

Judicial service

Year	Court	Appointed by	Vote
1986	Michigan Supreme Court	–	–

Education

Western Michigan University

Judicial Record

In our data, Archer authored 30 published opinions for the court (1986–1990), plus 27 dissents and 24 concurrences. Most cited: Allstate Insurance v. Freeman (238 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. 55 of these were attributed to Archer 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
1989	Allstate Insurance v. Freeman· Concurrence†	443 N.W.2d 734	238
1987	Smith v. Department of Public Health· Dissent†	410 N.W.2d 749	204
1990	People v. Beckley· Concurrence†	456 N.W.2d 391	182
1986	Hyde v. University of Michigan Board of Regents· Dissent†	393 N.W.2d 847	173
1990	People v. Heflin· Concurrence†	456 N.W.2d 10	160
1989	People v. Hill· Dissent†	446 N.W.2d 140	153
1988	Hadfield v. Oakland County Drain Commissioner· Concurrence†	422 N.W.2d 205	136
1990	Nasser v. Auto Club Ins. Ass'n· Dissent†	457 N.W.2d 637	133
1987	Kreski v. Modern Wholesale Electric Supply Co.· Concurrence†	415 N.W.2d 178	118
1990	Lichon v. American Universal Insurance	459 N.W.2d 288	116
1986	Sumner v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co.· Concurrence†	398 N.W.2d 368	113
1988	Brisboy v. Fibreboard Corp.· Concurrence†	418 N.W.2d 650	110
1990	People v. Jamieson· Dissent†	461 N.W.2d 884	96
1988	Theophelis v. Lansing General Hospital· Dissent†	424 N.W.2d 478	82
1989	People v. LaLone· Concurrence†	437 N.W.2d 611	75

Showing the 15 most-cited of 82 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 Michigan Supreme Court reach the bench?: The court's current selection method is nonpartisan election.
Which court was Dennis W. Archer on?: Dennis W. Archer was a Justice of the Michigan 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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4 years on the Michigan Supreme Court. Data as of 2026-03-31. Informational only; verify against the primary source before relying. Not a consumer report (FCRA).