How do judges of the Rhode Island Supreme Court reach the bench?

The court's current selection method is gubernatorial appointment.

Rhode Island Supreme Court / Joined 1767 / Served to 1778

William Greene

Justice, Rhode Island Supreme Court

William Greene was a Justice of the Rhode Island Supreme Court, who joined the court in 1767. Opinions & record ↓ Sources ↓

Lived: 1731–1809
Tenure: 1767–1778 · 11 yrs

Judicial service

Year	Court	Appointed by	Vote
1767	Rhode Island Supreme Court	–	–

Judicial Record

In our data, Greene authored 62 published opinions for the court (1849–1854). Most cited: Nathan G. Kenyon v. Jonathan Nichols (10 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.

Selected opinions

Year	Case	Citation	Cited
1851	Nathan G. Kenyon v. Jonathan Nichols	1 R.I. 411	10
1849	Holmes v. Peck	1 R.I. 242	7
1850	Alexander Hodges v. New England Screw Companys.	1 R.I. 312	5
1850	State v. Cozzens	2 R.I. 561	4
1850	Ezra Humes v. Samuel Taber	1 R.I. 464	4
1853	Alexander Hodges v. New England Screw Co.	3 R.I. 9	3
1853	Potter and Others v. Pettis	2 R.I. 483	2
1852	Jenckess. v. the Court of Probate of Smithfield	2 R.I. 255	2
1852	Law v. Smith and Others	2 R.I. 244	2
1852	Andrews v. Carr	2 R.I. 117	2
1852	Gifford v. Dyer	2 R.I. 99	2
1852	Perry, Administrator v. Hunters.	2 R.I. 80	2
1851	Providence Gas Co. v. Isaac Thurber	2 R.I. 15	2
1849	John G. Ladd v. Robert King	1 R.I. 224	2
1853	Hughes v. Providence & Worcester Railroad	2 R.I. 493	1

Showing the 15 most-cited of 62 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 Rhode Island Supreme Court reach the bench?: The court's current selection method is gubernatorial appointment.
Which court was William Greene on?: William Greene was a Justice of the Rhode Island Supreme Court.

Sources

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

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