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

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

Supreme Court of Oklahoma / Joined 2010 / Active

Douglas L. Combs

Justice, Supreme Court of Oklahoma

Douglas L. Combs is a Justice of the Supreme Court of Oklahoma, serving since 2010. Opinions & record ↓ Sources ↓

Born: 1951 · age 75
Tenure: Since 2010 · 16 yrs

Judicial service

Year	Court	Appointed by	Vote
2010	Supreme Court of Oklahoma	–	–

Education

University of Oklahoma-Norman Campus
Oklahoma City University

Judicial Record

In our data, Combs authored 106 published opinions for the court (2011–2019), plus 21 dissents and 21 concurrences. Most cited: Starkey v. Oklahoma Department of Corrections (125 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. 133 of these were attributed to Combs 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
2013	Starkey v. Oklahoma Department of Corrections†	305 P.3d 1004	125
2014	SMITH v. CITY OF STILLWATER†	2014 OK 42	121
2018	ODOM v. PENSKE TRUCK LEASING CO.†	2018 OK 23	114
2016	TORRES v. SEABOARD FOODS, LLC· Concurrence†	2016 OK 20	112
2016	LEE v. BUENO†	2016 OK 97	109
2014	AMERICAN AIRLINES, INC. v. STATE ex rel. OKLAHOMA TAX COMMISSION†	2014 OK 95	98
2012	STATE EX REL. OKLAHOMA BAR ASS'N v. Conrady· Dissent†	2012 OK 29	86
2017	BROWN v. CLAIMS MANAGEMENT RESOURCES INC.†	391 P.3d 111	75
2015	GOWENS v. BARSTOW†	2015 OK 85	75
2014	WOOD v. MERCEDES-BENZ OF OKLAHOMA CITY· Dissent†	2014 OK 68	68
2018	BRAITSCH v. CITY OF TULSA†	2018 OK 100	67
2014	STATE ex rel. OKLAHOMA BAR ASSOCIATION v. BERNHARDT· Dissent†	323 P.3d 222	67
2015	BABY F. v. OKLAHOMA COUNTY DISTRICT COURT†	2015 OK 24	66
2016	DANI v. MILLER†	2016 OK 35	64
2013	Scott v. Oklahoma Secondary School Activities Ass'n· Concurrence†	313 P.3d 891	62

Showing the 15 most-cited of 148 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 Oklahoma reach the bench?: The court's current selection method is merit selection with retention.
Which court is Douglas L. Combs on?: Douglas L. Combs is a Justice of the Supreme Court of Oklahoma.

Sources

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

How we source & reconcile data → Data & Sources

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