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

The court's current selection method is partisan election.

Supreme Court of Pennsylvania / Joined 1982 / Served to 1995

William D. Hutchinson

Justice, Supreme Court of Pennsylvania

William D. Hutchinson was a Justice of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, who joined the court in 1982. He earned a law degree from Harvard University in 1957. Opinions & record ↓ Sources ↓

Lived: 1932–1995
Tenure: 1982–1995 · 13 yrs
Education: Moravian College 1954 · Harvard

Judicial service

Year	Court	Appointed by	Vote
1982	Supreme Court of Pennsylvania	–	–

Education

Moravian College	B.A.	1954
Harvard University	J.D.	1957

Judicial Record

In our data, Hutchinson authored 118 published opinions for the court (1982–1987), plus 66 dissents and 99 concurrences. Most cited: Commonwealth v. Pierce (2,071 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. 283 of these were attributed to Hutchinson 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
1987	Commonwealth v. Pierce· Concurrence†	527 A.2d 973	2,071
1987	Commonwealth v. Tuladziecki· Dissent†	522 A.2d 17	739
1983	Standard Venetian Blind Co. v. American Empire Insurance· Concurrence†	469 A.2d 563	700
1983	Valley View Civic Ass'n v. Zoning Board of Adjustment· Dissent†	462 A.2d 637	562
1985	Reilly v. Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority· Concurrence†	489 A.2d 1291	428
1986	Hutchison v. Sunbeam Coal Corp.†	519 A.2d 385	422
1985	Commonwealth v. Dugger· Concurrence†	486 A.2d 382	417
1987	Mascaro v. Youth Study Center· Concurrence†	523 A.2d 1118	406
1985	Peak v. Commonwealth, Unemployment Compensation Board of Review†	509 Pa. 267	355
1983	Guy v. Liederbach†	459 A.2d 744	333
1987	Kazatsky v. King David Memorial Park, Inc.· Concurrence†	527 A.2d 988	318
1986	Commonwealth v. Gray†	503 A.2d 921	301
1985	Martin v. Johns-Manville Corp.†	494 A.2d 1088	274
1983	Commonwealth v. Sell· Dissent†	470 A.2d 457	268
1983	Morena v. South Hills Health System· Concurrence†	462 A.2d 680	253

Showing the 15 most-cited of 283 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 Pennsylvania reach the bench?: The court's current selection method is partisan election.
Which court was William D. Hutchinson on?: William D. Hutchinson was a Justice of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania.

Sources

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

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