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 1868 / Served to 1875

George Brayton

Justice, Rhode Island Supreme Court

George Brayton was a Justice of the Rhode Island Supreme Court, who joined the court in 1868. Opinions & record ↓ Sources ↓

Tenure: 1868–1875 · 7 yrs

Judicial service

Year	Court	Appointed by	Vote
1868	Rhode Island Supreme Court	–	–

Judicial Record

In our data, Brayton authored 194 published opinions for the court (1847–1874). Most cited: Joseph Hagan v. Providence and Worcester R. R. Co. (11 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.

Selected opinions

Year	Case	Citation	Cited
1854	Joseph Hagan v. Providence and Worcester R. R. Co.	3 R.I. 88	11
1864	Aldrich v. Howard	8 R.I. 125	6
1858	Moore v. Dimond	5 R.I. 121	6
1872	Thurston v. Miller	10 R.I. 358	5
1872	Blake v. Butler	10 R.I. 133	5
1851	John A. Littlefield v. Samuel W. Peckham	1 R.I. 500	5
1866	Martin v. Clarkes.	8 R.I. 389	4
1863	Walcott, Administrator v. Pitcher and Others	7 R.I. 555	4
1858	Gould v. Winthrop and Wife, Others	5 R.I. 319	4
1855	Thomas Crocker v. Elbridge G. Arey	3 R.I. 178	4
1872	Gardner v. Gardner	10 R.I. 211	3
1871	Chase v. American Steamboat Company	10 R.I. 79	3
1870	Reese and Wife v. Court of Probate of Newport	9 R.I. 434	3
1856	Derby v. Derby Others	4 R.I. 414	3
1854	State (Jeremiah Brown, Com.) v. Augustus B. Copeland	3 R.I. 33	3

Showing the 15 most-cited of 195 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 George Brayton on?: George Brayton 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

See something wrong? Report an error. Fixes are logged in the corrections log.

7 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).