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

The court's current selection method is nonpartisan election.

Montana Supreme Court / Joined 2001 / Active

Jim Rice

Justice, Montana Supreme Court

Jim Rice is a Justice of the Montana Supreme Court (7 judges, selected by nonpartisan election), serving since 2001. Opinions & record ↓ Sources ↓

Born: 1957 · age 69
Tenure: Since 2001 · 25 yrs

Judicial service

Year	Court	Appointed by	Vote
2001	Montana Supreme Court	–	–

Judicial Record

In our data, Rice authored 650 published opinions for the court (2001–2026), plus 164 dissents and 187 concurrences. Most cited: State v. Ariegwe (190 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. 693 of these were attributed to Rice 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
2007	State v. Ariegwe· Concurrence†	2007 MT 204	190
2013	Pilgeram v. Greenpoint Mortgage Funding, Inc.· Dissent†	2013 MT 354	103
2002	Kiely Construction, L.L.C. v. City of Red Lodge Ex Rel. Red Lodge City Council· Concurrence†	2002 MT 241	96
2003	State v. Martinez· Dissent†	2003 MT 65	92
2004	Stanley L. and Carolyn M. Watkins Trust v. Lacosta· Concurrence†	2004 MT 144	91
2009	Jacobsen v. Allstate Insurance· Concurrence†	2009 MT 248	88
2008	Montana Petroleum Tank Release Compensation Board v. Crumleys, Inc.· Dissent†	2008 MT 2	85
2003	Hardy v. Progressive Specialty Insurance Co.· Concurrence†	2003 MT 85	84
2003	Plath v. Schonrock· Concurrence†	2003 MT 21	79
2001	State v. Jefferson· Concurrence†	2003 MT 90	78
2004	State v. Heath	2004 MT 126	77
2006	In re A.N.W.· Concurrence†	331 Mont. 208	76
2002	State v. Good· Concurrence†	2002 MT 59	75
2008	State v. Hamper· Dissent†	2008 MT 296	73
2001	State v. Hardaway· Dissent†	2001 MT 252	72

Showing the 15 most-cited of 1,001 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 Montana Supreme Court reach the bench?: The court's current selection method is nonpartisan election.
Which court is Jim Rice on?: Jim Rice is a Justice of the Montana Supreme Court.

Sources

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

How we source & reconcile data → Data & Sources

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