How do judges of the Maine Supreme Judicial Court reach the bench?

The court's current selection method is gubernatorial appointment.

Maine Supreme Judicial Court / Joined 1988 / Served to 1994

Samuel W. Collins Jr.

Justice, Maine Supreme Judicial Court

Samuel W. Collins Jr. was a Justice of the Maine Supreme Judicial Court, who joined the court in 1988. Opinions & record ↓ Sources ↓

Born: 1923 · age 103
Tenure: 1988–1994 · 5 yrs

Judicial service

Year	Court	Appointed by	Vote
1988	Maine Supreme Judicial Court	–	–

Education

University of Maine
Harvard University

Judicial Record

In our data, Collins authored 181 published opinions for the court (1988–1994), plus 14 dissents and 2 concurrences. Most cited: Lester v. Powers (128 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. 196 of these were attributed to Collins 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
1991	Lester v. Powers†	596 A.2d 65	128
1992	Diversified Foods, Inc. v. First National Bank of Boston†	605 A.2d 609	102
1990	Currier v. Cyr†	570 A.2d 1205	69
1993	Henriksen v. Cameron†	622 A.2d 1135	54
1990	City of Auburn v. Desgrosseilliers†	578 A.2d 712	49
1992	State v. Hill†	606 A.2d 793	46
1990	Massachusetts Bay Insurance v. Ferraiolo Construction Co.†	584 A.2d 608	39
1991	Moore v. City of Lewiston†	596 A.2d 612	37
1992	Bayley v. Bayley†	602 A.2d 1152	36
1992	Forester v. City of Westbrook†	604 A.2d 31	35
1992	A.F.A.B., Inc. v. Town of Old Orchard Beach†	610 A.2d 747	31
1991	Waterville Homes, Inc. v. Maine Department of Transportation†	589 A.2d 455	30
1990	State v. Niles†	585 A.2d 181	28
1992	Gerrity Co., Inc. v. Lake Arrowhead Corp.†	609 A.2d 293	26
1992	Bangor & Aroostook Railroad v. Daigle†	607 A.2d 533	26

Showing the 15 most-cited of 197 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 Maine Supreme Judicial Court reach the bench?: The court's current selection method is gubernatorial appointment.
Which court was Samuel W. Collins Jr. on?: Samuel W. Collins Jr. was a Justice of the Maine Supreme Judicial Court.

Sources

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

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