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

The court's current selection method is nonpartisan election.

Supreme Court of Kentucky / Joined 1996 / Served to 2006

Martin E. Johnstone

Justice, Supreme Court of Kentucky

Martin E. Johnstone was a Justice of the Supreme Court of Kentucky, who joined the court in 1996. Opinions & record ↓ Sources ↓

Born: 1949 · age 77
Tenure: 1996–2006 · 10 yrs

Judicial service

Year	Court	Appointed by	Vote
1996	Supreme Court of Kentucky	–	–

Education

Western Kentucky University
University of Louisville

Judicial Record

In our data, Johnstone authored 122 published opinions for the court (1997–2007), plus 41 dissents and 18 concurrences. Most cited: Goodyear Tire and Rubber Co. v. Thompson (491 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. 109 of these were attributed to Johnstone 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	Goodyear Tire and Rubber Co. v. Thompson	11 S.W.3d 575	491
2003	Pathways, Inc. v. Hammons†	113 S.W.3d 85	200
1999	Mills v. Commonwealth	996 S.W.2d 473	174
2005	3D Entersprises Contracting Corp. v. Louisville Jefferson & County Metropolitan Sewer District†	174 S.W.3d 440	169
2004	Brooks v. Lexington-Fayette Urban County Housing Authority	132 S.W.3d 790	132
1998	Bob Hook Chevrolet Isuzu, Inc. v. Commonwealth, Transportation Cabinet· Concurrence†	983 S.W.2d 488	127
2002	Kemper National Insurance Companies v. Heaven Hill Distilleries, Inc.	82 S.W.3d 869	109
2003	Phelps v. Louisville Water Co.· Concurrence†	103 S.W.3d 46	107
1998	Barnett v. Commonwealth· Dissent†	979 S.W.2d 98	85
2004	Lexington-Fayette Urban County Government v. Smolcic†	142 S.W.3d 128	77
2006	Stephenson v. Woodward	182 S.W.3d 162	66
2003	Lanier v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.· Dissent†	99 S.W.3d 431	66
2002	Bowling v. Commonwealth	80 S.W.3d 405	65
2000	Commonwealth Department of Agriculture v. Vinson· Concurrence†	30 S.W.3d 162	63
2004	Kentucky Department of Corrections v. McCullough†	123 S.W.3d 130	60

Showing the 15 most-cited of 181 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 Kentucky reach the bench?: The court's current selection method is nonpartisan election.
Which court was Martin E. Johnstone on?: Martin E. Johnstone was a Justice of the Supreme Court of Kentucky.

Sources

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

How we source & reconcile data → Data & Sources

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