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

The court's current selection method is nonpartisan election.

Washington Supreme Court / Joined 1951 / Served to 1976

Robert Corpening Finley

Justice, Washington Supreme Court

Robert Corpening Finley was a Justice of the Washington Supreme Court, who joined the court in 1951. Opinions & record ↓ Sources ↓

Lived: 1905–1976
Tenure: 1951–1976 · 25 yrs

Judicial service

Year	Court	Appointed by	Vote
1951	Washington Supreme Court	–	–

Education

Duke University
Duke University
Georgetown University

Judicial Record

In our data, Finley authored 553 published opinions for the court (1951–1976), plus 140 dissents and 109 concurrences. Most cited: State Ex Rel. Carroll v. Junker (1,211 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. 331 of these were attributed to Finley 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
1971	State Ex Rel. Carroll v. Junker· Dissent†	482 P.2d 775	1,211
1973	In Re Welfare of Sego· Dissent†	513 P.2d 831	470
1965	Evangelical United Brethren Church v. State· Dissent†	67 Wash. 2d 246	230
1972	State v. Reader's Digest Ass'n· Dissent†	501 P.2d 290	168
1968	State v. Davis· Concurrence†	438 P.2d 185	162
1969	Ancheta v. Daly	461 P.2d 531	157
1975	State v. Gosby	539 P.2d 680	153
1974	Fritz v. Gorton	517 P.2d 911	149
1974	State v. Smith	527 P.2d 674	146
1968	Markham Advertising Co. v. State· Concurrence†	439 P.2d 248	141
1975	Hama Hama Co. v. Shorelines Hearings Board	536 P.2d 157	139
1962	State v. Michaels· Concurrence†	374 P.2d 989	138
1974	In Re the Welfare of Luscier	524 P.2d 906	132
1953	State v. Emmanuel· Concurrence†	259 P.2d 845	129
1976	Taskett v. King Broadcasting Co.· Concurrence†	546 P.2d 81	127

Showing the 15 most-cited of 802 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 Washington Supreme Court reach the bench?: The court's current selection method is nonpartisan election.
Which court was Robert Corpening Finley on?: Robert Corpening Finley was a Justice of the Washington 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 Washington Supreme Court. Data as of 2026-03-31. Informational only; verify against the primary source before relying. Not a consumer report (FCRA).