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

The court's current selection method is nonpartisan election.

Supreme Court of Arkansas / Joined 1997 / Served to 2004

Lavenski R. Smith

Justice, Supreme Court of Arkansas

Lavenski R. Smith was a Justice of the Supreme Court of Arkansas, who joined the court in 1997. Opinions & record ↓ Sources ↓

Born: 1958 · age 68
Tenure: 1997–2004 · 6 yrs
Education: University of Arkansas 1981

Judicial service

Year	Court	Appointed by	Vote
1997	Supreme Court of Arkansas	–	–

Education

University of Tulsa
University of Arkansas	B.A.	1981

Judicial Record

In our data, Smith authored 23 published opinions for the court (1999–2000), plus 6 dissents and 6 concurrences. Most cited: Roberts v. Priest (160 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. 35 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
2000	Roberts v. Priest· Concurrence†	20 S.W.3d 376	160
1999	Ford v. Keith†	996 S.W.2d 20	131
2000	Kurrus Ex Rel. Arkansans to Protect Police, Libraries, Education, & Services (APPLES) v. Priest· Dissent†	29 S.W.3d 669	92
1999	George v. Jefferson Hosp. Ass'n, Inc.†	987 S.W.2d 710	86
2000	City of Caddo Valley v. George· Dissent†	9 S.W.3d 481	71
2000	Bobby v. Arkansas Department of Human Services· Concurrence†	12 S.W.3d 204	52
1999	Arkansas State Police Commission v. Smith· Dissent†	994 S.W.2d 456	49
1999	Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. v. VanWagner†	990 S.W.2d 522	46
2000	Lake View School District No. 25 v. Huckabee· Concurrence†	10 S.W.3d 892	43
2000	Davis v. Office of Child Support Enforcement†	20 S.W.3d 273	42
1999	Fowler v. State· Dissent†	5 S.W.3d 10	40
1999	McQuay v. Arkansas State Board of Architects· Concurrence†	989 S.W.2d 499	39
1999	Arkansas Highway Police v. Crittenden County Prosecuting Attorney's Office†	337 Ark. 74	32
2000	Jacobs v. Yates· Dissent†	27 S.W.3d 734	31
2000	Francis v. Francis†	31 S.W.3d 841	30

Showing the 15 most-cited of 35 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 Supreme Court of Arkansas reach the bench?: The court's current selection method is nonpartisan election.
Which court was Lavenski R. Smith on?: Lavenski R. Smith was a Justice of the Supreme Court of Arkansas.

Sources

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

How we source & reconcile data → Data & Sources

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