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Court Diversification: Staffing the State Courts of Last Resort Through Interim Appointments

In this study, we examine a governor's ability to appoint interim replacement judges to courts of last resort in states with elective judiciaries. We find that 52 percent of all judges placed on the courts of last resort in such states between 1964 and 2004 were appointed by the governor, with the remaining 48 percent being elected to the bench. This finding is notable in terms of the importance of interim appointments to the staffing of the state bench and is in line with earlier studies on interim appointments. We also find that there is some difference in the race of appointed judges compared to elected judges overall, and that interim appointments are more likely to diversify an all-male or all-white court than are elections. Finally, we conclude that Democratic governors are more likely than are Republicans to put forward nonwhite judges as interim appointees, particularly when to do so initiates diversification of a court.