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 2003 / Served to 2013

Francis Flaherty

Justice, Rhode Island Supreme Court

Francis Flaherty was a Justice of the Rhode Island Supreme Court, who joined the court in 2003. Opinions & record ↓ Sources ↓

Born: 1947 · age 79
Tenure: 2003–2013 · 10 yrs

Judicial service

Year	Court	Appointed by	Vote
2003	Rhode Island Supreme Court	–	–

Education

Providence College
Suffolk University

Judicial Record

In our data, Flaherty authored 210 published opinions for the court (2003–2013), plus 16 dissents and 9 concurrences. Most cited: State v. Lynch (102 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. 213 of these were attributed to Flaherty 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
2004	State v. Lynch· Dissent†	854 A.2d 1022	102
2013	Anthony Bucci v. Lehman Brothers Bank, FSB†	68 A.3d 1069	72
2005	State v. Santos· Dissent†	870 A.2d 1029	71
2011	DeMarco v. Travelers Insurance Co.· Dissent†	26 A.3d 585	69
2011	Ryan v. City of Providence†	11 A.3d 68	56
2010	Berman v. Sitrin· Concurrence†	991 A.2d 1038	55
2006	Rossi v. Employees' Retirement System†	895 A.2d 106	54
2008	State v. Barkmeyer· Concurrence†	949 A.2d 984	49
2004	America Condominium Association v. IDC, Inc.	844 A.2d 117	48
2013	State v. Adrian Hazard· Concurrence†	68 A.3d 479	47
2008	City of Cranston v. Rhode Island Laborers' District Council· Dissent†	960 A.2d 529	46
2008	State v. Graham†	941 A.2d 848	46
2009	Young v. Warwick Rollermagic Skating Center, Inc.· Dissent†	973 A.2d 553	44
2008	Pawtucket Transfer Operations, LLC v. City of Pawtucket	944 A.2d 855	42
2005	Kells v. Town of Lincoln	874 A.2d 204	42

Showing the 15 most-cited of 235 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 Francis Flaherty on?: Francis Flaherty was a Justice of the Rhode Island Supreme Court.

Sources

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

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10 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).