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 1983 / Served to 1991

Roy N. Vance

Justice, Supreme Court of Kentucky

Roy N. Vance was a Justice of the Supreme Court of Kentucky, who joined the court in 1983. He previously served on the Kentucky Court of Appeals. Opinions & record ↓ Sources ↓

Lived: 1921–2007
Tenure: 1983–1991 · 8 yrs

Judicial service

Year	Court	Appointed by	Vote
1970	Kentucky Court of Appeals	–	–
1983	Supreme Court of Kentucky	–	–

Education

University of Kentucky

Judicial Record

In our data, Vance authored 325 published opinions for the court (1970–1991), plus 71 dissents and 22 concurrences. Most cited: Paintsville Hospital Co. v. Rose (285 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. 344 of these were attributed to Vance 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
1985	Paintsville Hospital Co. v. Rose· Dissent†	683 S.W.2d 255	285
1989	Rose v. Council for Better Education, Inc.· Dissent†	790 S.W.2d 186	284
1984	Hilen v. Hays· Dissent†	673 S.W.2d 713	213
1983	Firestone Textile Co. Division v. Meadows· Concurrence†	666 S.W.2d 730	196
1986	McClellan v. Commonwealth	715 S.W.2d 464	160
1987	Slaughter v. Commonwealth· Dissent†	744 S.W.2d 407	159
1989	Regional Jail Authority v. Tackett	770 S.W.2d 225	134
1985	Horton v. Union Light, Heat & Power Co.· Dissent†	690 S.W.2d 382	127
1987	Grayson Fraternal Order of Eagles, Aerie No. 3738, Inc. v. Claywell· Dissent†	736 S.W.2d 328	113
1989	Curry v. Fireman's Fund Insurance Co.· Dissent†	784 S.W.2d 176	93
1984	Davis v. Graviss· Dissent†	672 S.W.2d 928	87
1990	Gentry v. Gentry· Dissent†	798 S.W.2d 928	84
1990	Drumm v. Commonwealth· Dissent†	783 S.W.2d 380	81
1987	Smith v. Commonwealth· Concurrence†	734 S.W.2d 437	79
1991	Kentucky Center for the Arts Corp. v. Berns· Dissent†	801 S.W.2d 327	78

Showing the 15 most-cited of 418 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 Roy N. Vance on?: Roy N. Vance 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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8 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).