How do judges of the Kentucky Court of Appeals reach the bench?

The court's current selection method is nonpartisan election.

Kentucky Court of Appeals / Joined 1965 / Active

Ira Smith

Judge, Kentucky Court of Appeals

Ira Smith is a Judge of the Kentucky Court of Appeals, serving since 1965. Opinions & record ↓ Sources ↓

Tenure: Since 1965 · 61 yrs

Judicial service

Year	Court	Appointed by	Vote
1965	Kentucky Court of Appeals	–	–

Judicial Record

In our data, Smith authored 9 published opinions for the court (1966–1974). Most cited: Webb v. Boydston (5 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. 9 of these were attributed to Smith 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
1969	Webb v. Boydston†	439 S.W.2d 955	5
1968	Mitchell v. Mitchell†	428 S.W.2d 222	4
1967	Averitte v. Hutchinson†	420 S.W.2d 581	3
1974	Lee v. Dinning†	515 S.W.2d 93	0
1974	Click v. Blanton†	507 S.W.2d 499	0
1974	Curry v. Puckett†	507 S.W.2d 499	0
1973	Riggs v. Keeneway Development Co.†	498 S.W.2d 140	0
1967	McGaughey v. Continental Illinois National Bank & Trust Co. of Chicago†	419 S.W.2d 139	0
1966	Turner v. Greer Bros. & Young, Inc.†	408 S.W.2d 439	0

Showing the 9 most-cited of 9 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 Kentucky Court of Appeals reach the bench?: The court's current selection method is nonpartisan election.
Which court is Ira Smith on?: Ira Smith is a Judge of the Kentucky Court of Appeals.

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.

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