How do judges of the Court of Appeals of Texas reach the bench?

The court's current selection method is partisan election.

Court of Appeals of Texas / Joined 1999 / Served to 2023

Thomas W. Gray

Chief Justice, Court of Appeals of Texas

Thomas W. Gray was a Chief Justice of the Court of Appeals of Texas, who joined the court in 1999. Opinions & record ↓ Sources ↓

Born: 1956 · age 70
Tenure: 1999–2023 · 24 yrs
Education: Sam Houston State 1978

Judicial service

Year	Court	Appointed by	Vote
1999	Court of Appeals of Texas	–	–
2003	Court of Appeals of Texas	–	–
2005	Court of Appeals of Texas	–	–
2007	Court of Appeals of Texas	–	–
2013	Court of Appeals of Texas	–	–
2019	Court of Appeals of Texas	–	–

Education

Sam Houston State University	Business Administration, cum laude, with honors	1978
Texas A & M University-College Station	Accounting	1979
Baylor University	cum laude, with honors	1985

Judicial Record

In our data, Gray authored 306 published opinions for the court (1999–2018), plus 203 dissents and 122 concurrences. Most cited: Eian Tilor Hurlburt v. State (292 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. 633 of these were attributed to Gray 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
2016	Eian Tilor Hurlburt v. State†	506 S.W.3d 199	292
2003	In Re Keeter· Dissent†	134 S.W.3d 250	193
2008	in the Interest of S.N., a Child· Concurrence†	272 S.W.3d 45	165
2014	Ferguson v. State· Concurrence†	435 S.W.3d 291	139
2002	In the Interest of E.L.Y.· Dissent†	69 S.W.3d 838	135
2000	Veteto v. State†	8 S.W.3d 805	134
2005	Ski River Development, Inc. v. McCalla· Concurrence†	167 S.W.3d 121	133
2001	In the Interest of J.O.C.†	47 S.W.3d 108	125
2000	Fletcher v. Edwards· Dissent†	26 S.W.3d 66	122
2006	Abbott v. State· Concurrence†	196 S.W.3d 334	119
2008	In Re Smith· Dissent†	270 S.W.3d 783	115
2001	Larsen v. Carlene Langford & Associates, Inc.†	41 S.W.3d 245	115
2000	Burleson State Bank v. Plunkett†	27 S.W.3d 605	111
2015	in the Interest of E.M. and J.M., Children†	494 S.W.3d 209	109
2010	Ramirez v. State†	318 S.W.3d 906	107

Showing the 15 most-cited of 633 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 Court of Appeals of Texas reach the bench?: The court's current selection method is partisan election.
Which court was Thomas W. Gray on?: Thomas W. Gray was a Chief Justice of the Court of Appeals of Texas.

Sources

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

How we source & reconcile data → Data & Sources

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