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

The court's current selection method is nonpartisan election.

Michigan Supreme Court / Joined 1956 / Served to 1962

George Clifton Edwards Jr.

Justice, Michigan Supreme Court

George Clifton Edwards Jr. was a Justice of the Michigan Supreme Court, who joined the court in 1956. Opinions & record ↓ Sources ↓

Lived: 1914–1995
Tenure: 1956–1962 · 6 yrs
Education: Southern Methodist 1933

Judicial service

Year	Court	Appointed by	Vote
1956	Michigan Supreme Court	–	–

Education

Southern Methodist University	B.A.	1933
Harvard University	M.A.	1934

Judicial Record

In our data, Edwards authored 34 published opinions for the court (1956–1961), plus 14 dissents and 30 concurrences. Most cited: People v. Gonzales (129 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. 78 of these were attributed to Edwards 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
1959	People v. Gonzales†	97 N.W.2d 16	129
1957	Sheppard v. Michigan National Bank· Concurrence†	83 N.W.2d 614	126
1958	Crilly v. Ballou· Concurrence†	91 N.W.2d 493	103
1958	Fritts v. Krugh†	92 N.W.2d 604	96
1960	People v. Zeigler· Concurrence†	100 N.W.2d 456	94
1959	Park v. Employment Security Commission†	94 N.W.2d 407	83
1961	McDowell v. State Highway Commissioner· Concurrence†	112 N.W.2d 491	72
1958	White v. Michigan Consolidated Gas Co.†	89 N.W.2d 439	54
1957	Lyshak v. City of Detroit· Concurrence†	88 N.W.2d 596	52
1958	Bacon v. Kent-Ottawa Metropolitan Water Authority· Concurrence†	92 N.W.2d 492	45
1959	Linski v. Employment Security Commission†	99 N.W.2d 582	44
1958	Certain-Teed Products Corp. v. Paris Township†	88 N.W.2d 705	43
1958	City of Dearborn v. Bacila· Concurrence†	90 N.W.2d 863	34
1961	Christie v. BD. OF REGENTS UNIVERSITY REGENTS· Concurrence†	111 N.W.2d 30	33
1960	Wells v. the Detroit News, Inc.†	104 N.W.2d 767	31

Showing the 15 most-cited of 78 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 George Clifton Edwards Jr. on?: George Clifton Edwards Jr. was a Justice of the Michigan Supreme Court.

Sources

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

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6 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).