The Wyoming Supreme Court is the highest court

Supreme court

A supreme court is the highest court within the hierarchy of many legal jurisdictions. Other descriptions for such courts include court of last resort, instance court, judgment court, high court, or apex court...

 in the U.S. state

U.S. state

A U.S. state is any one of the 50 federated states of the United States of America that share sovereignty with the federal government. Because of this shared sovereignty, an American is a citizen both of the federal entity and of his or her state of domicile. Four states use the official title of...

 of Wyoming

Wyoming

Wyoming is a state in the mountain region of the Western United States. The western two thirds of the state is covered mostly with the mountain ranges and rangelands in the foothills of the Eastern Rocky Mountains, while the eastern third of the state is high elevation prairie known as the High...

. The Court consists of a Chief Justice

Chief Justice

The Chief Justice in many countries is the name for the presiding member of a Supreme Court in Commonwealth or other countries with an Anglo-Saxon justice system based on English common law, such as the Supreme Court of Canada, the Constitutional Court of South Africa, the Court of Final Appeal of...

 and four Associate Justice

Associate Justice

Associate Justice or Associate Judge is the title for a member of a judicial panel who is not the Chief Justice in some jurisdictions. The title "Associate Justice" is used for members of the United States Supreme Court and some state supreme courts, and for some other courts in Commonwealth...

s. Each Justice is appointed by the Governor of Wyoming for an eight-year term. The five Justices select the Chief Justice from amongst themselves. The person chosen serves as Chief Justice for four years. However, Richard V. Thomas

Richard V. Thomas

Richard Van Thomas was a member of the Wyoming Supreme Court, having served from December 1974 until his retirement in February 2001. From 1985–1986, he was chief justice of the Wyoming high court.-Background:...

 of Cheyenne

Cheyenne, Wyoming

Cheyenne is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Wyoming and the county seat of Laramie County. It is the principal city of the Cheyenne, Wyoming, Metropolitan Statistical Area which encompasses all of Laramie County. The population is 59,466 at the 2010 census. Cheyenne is the...

, a justice from 1974-2001, was chief justice only for two years, 1985-1986.

Current Justices

Name	Term Start	Term Expires	Position	Appointed By
Marylin S. Kite	June 2, 2000	June 2, 2016	Chief Justice	Jim Geringer Jim Geringer James Edward "Jim" Geringer was the 30th Governor of Wyoming.-Early life and education:Geringer was raised on a farm in Wheatland, Wyoming. He attended Kansas State University and was a member of Triangle Fraternity, earning a degree in mechanical engineering. He served for ten years in the...
Michael Golden	1988	2012	Associate Justice	Mike Sullivan
William U. Hill	November 3, 1998	November 3, 2014	Associate Justice	Jim Geringer
Barton R. Voight	March 29, 2001	March 29, 2017	Associate Justice	Jim Geringer
E. James Burke	January, 2005	January, 2013	Associate Justice	Dave Freudenthal Dave Freudenthal David Duane "Dave" Freudenthal , is an American politician who served as the 31st Governor of Wyoming. A Democrat, he was reelected to his second term on November 7, 2006, and announced on March 4, 2010, that he would not attempt to seek a third term as Governor.-Education and early...

In 1974, Chief Justice Leonard McEwan

Leonard McEwan

Leonard A. McEwan was an American jurist who was a member of both the Wyoming Supreme Court, which meets in the capital city of Cheyenne, and the Fourth Judicial District Court, which convenes in Sheridan and serves Sheridan and Johnson counties...

 (1925-2008) stepped down from the high court in Cheyenne

Cheyenne, Wyoming

Cheyenne is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Wyoming and the county seat of Laramie County. It is the principal city of the Cheyenne, Wyoming, Metropolitan Statistical Area which encompasses all of Laramie County. The population is 59,466 at the 2010 census. Cheyenne is the...

 to assume the Fourth District judgeship in Sheridan

Sheridan, Wyoming

Sheridan is a city in Sheridan County, Wyoming, United States. The 2010 census put the population at 17,444 and a Micropolitan Statistical Area of 29,116...

, where he had earlier practiced law

Law

Law is a system of rules and guidelines which are enforced through social institutions to govern behavior, wherever possible. It shapes politics, economics and society in numerous ways and serves as a social mediator of relations between people. Contract law regulates everything from buying a bus...

. McEwan is thus far the only Supreme Court justice in Wyoming history

History

History is the discovery, collection, organization, and presentation of information about past events. History can also mean the period of time after writing was invented. Scholars who write about history are called historians...

 to moved to a lower court judgeship. McEwan was narrowly elected to the high court in 1968 on a nonpartisan

Nonpartisan

In political science, nonpartisan denotes an election, event, organization or person in which there is no formally declared association with a political party affiliation....

 ballot

Ballot

A ballot is a device used to record choices made by voters. Each voter uses one ballot, and ballots are not shared. In the simplest elections, a ballot may be a simple scrap of paper on which each voter writes in the name of a candidate, but governmental elections use pre-printed to protect the...

.