Donald Lemons
Donald Lemons was a judge of the Supreme Court of Virginia. He assumed office on March 16, 2000. He left office on February 1, 2022.
Lemons retired in February 2022.[1]
Lemons was first elected by the General Assembly during the 2000 session.[2] Lemons became the court's chief justice in 2014, following the retirement of Cynthia Kinser.[3] He served as chief justice until December 31, 2021.[4] To read more about judicial selection in Virginia, click here.
In 2020, Ballotpedia published Ballotpedia Courts: State Partisanship, a study examining the partisan affiliation of all state supreme court justices in the country. As part of this study, we assigned each justice a Confidence Score describing our confidence in the degree of partisanship exhibited by the justices' past partisan behavior, before they joined the court.[5] Lemons received a confidence score of Mild Republican.[6] Click here to read more about this study.
Biography
Lemons received a B.A. in 1970 and a J.D. in 1976 from the University of Virginia.[7] From 1976 to 1978, Lemons was assistant dean and assistant professor of law at the University of Virginia School of Law, his alma mater. In 1978, he entered private practice. Governor Allen (R) appointed Lemons to the Circuit Court of the City of Richmond in 1995, and he was confirmed by the General Assembly. Three years later, Lemons was elected to an eight-year term to the Virginia Court of Appeals, and in 2000, Lemons was elected to the Supreme Court of Virginia. All elections occurred in the General Assembly.[7] Lemons was president of the American Inns of Court Board of Trustees for two terms between 2010 and 2014.[8] He also received the American Inns of Court Lewis F. Powell Jr. Award for Professionalism and Ethics in 2019, and the Virginia Bar Association’s Gerald L. Baliles Distinguished Service Award in 2018.[8]
Appointments
2000
In 2000, Lemons was elected by the Virginia General Assembly to the Supreme Court of Virginia.[7]
1998
In 1998, Lemons was elected by the Virginia General Assembly to an eight-year term on the Virginia Court of Appeals.[7]
1995
Lemonds was appointed to the Circuit Court of the City of Richmond in 1995 by Governor Allen (R), he was later confirmed by the General Assembly.[7]
Analysis
Ballotpedia Courts: State Partisanship (2020)
Last updated: June 15, 2020
In 2020, Ballotpedia published Ballotpedia Courts: State Partisanship, a study examining the partisan affiliation of all state supreme court justices in the country as of June 15, 2020.
The study presented Confidence Scores that represented our confidence in each justice's degree of partisan affiliation. This was not a measure of where a justice fell on an ideological spectrum, but rather a measure of how much confidence we had that a justice was or had been affiliated with a political party. The scores were based on seven factors, including but not limited to party registration.[9]
The five resulting categories of Confidence Scores were:
- Strong Democrat
- Mild Democrat
- Indeterminate[10]
- Mild Republican
- Strong Republican
This justice's Confidence Score, as well as the factors contributing to that score, is presented below. The information below was current as of June 2020.
Donald
Lemons
Virginia
- Partisan Confidence Score:
Mild Republican - Judicial Selection Method:
Direct legislative appointment - Key Factors:
- Appointed by a Republican legislature
- State was a Republican trifecta at time of appointment
Partisan Profile
Details:
Lemons was appointed to the Virginia Supreme Court by a Republican controlled legislature in 2000. At the time of his selection, Virginia was a Republican trifecta.
State supreme court judicial selection in Virginia
- See also: Judicial selection in Virginia
The seven justices of the supreme court are elected by a majority vote of both chambers of the Virginia General Assembly.[11] Supreme court justices serve 12-year terms. At the end of their terms, judges must be re-selected by the legislature just as they initially were.[11]
Qualifications
To serve on the supreme court, a judge must be:
- a state resident; and
- a state bar member for at least five years.[12]
Chief justice
The chief justice of the court is selected by peer vote. The supreme court chief justice serves in that capacity for four years.[13]
Vacancies
When the General Assembly is in session, midterm vacancies are filled by the same legislative selection process normally used to select judges. When the assembly is not in session, the governor appoints a replacement to serve until 30 days after the start of the next session, by which point a judge must be elected to the seat.[11][14]
The map below highlights how vacancies are filled in state supreme courts across the country.
See also
External links
Footnotes
- ↑ VPM, "Thorny politics get in the way of filling Virginia Supreme Court vacancies," accessed April 20, 2022
- ↑ Virginia's Judicial System, "Justices of the Supreme Court of Virginia," accessed August 14, 2014
- ↑ Virginia Courts, "Supreme Court," accessed January 28, 2015
- ↑ Richmond Times Dispatch, "Chief justice of the Virginia Supreme Court is stepping down; his successor is named," December 20, 2021
- ↑ We calculated confidence scores by collecting several data points such as party registration, donations, and previous political campaigns.
- ↑ The five possible confidence scores were: Strong Democrat, Mild Democrat, Indeterminate, Mild Republican, and Strong Republican.
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 7.3 7.4 Washington and Lee School of Law, "Faculty profile: DONALD W. LEMONS," archived April 18, 2016
- ↑ 8.0 8.1 Businesss Wire, "Chief Justice Donald W. Lemons to Receive the 2019 American Inns of Court Lewis F. Powell Jr. Award for Professionalism and Ethics," accessed July 26, 2021
- ↑ The seven factors were party registration, donations made to partisan candidates, donations made to political parties, donations received from political parties or bodies with clear political affiliation, participation in political campaigns, the partisanship of the body responsible for appointing the justice, and state trifecta status when the justice joined the court.
- ↑ An Indeterminate score indicates that there is either not enough information about the justice’s partisan affiliations or that our research found conflicting partisan affiliations.
- ↑ 11.0 11.1 11.2 Virginia's Legislative Information System, "Constitution of Virginia," accessed September 19, 2014 (Scroll to Article VI)
- ↑ National Center for State Courts, "Methods of Judicial Selection," accessed August 18, 2021
- ↑ National Center for State Courts, "Methods of Judicial Selection," accessed August 18, 2021
- ↑ National Center for State Courts, "Methods of Judicial Selection," accessed August 18, 2021
Federal courts:
Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals • U.S. District Court: Eastern District of Virginia, Western District of Virginia • U.S. Bankruptcy Court: Eastern District of Virginia, Western District of Virginia
State courts:
Virginia Supreme Court • Virginia Court of Appeals • Virginia Circuit Courts • Virginia District Courts • Virginia Magistrates
State resources:
Courts in Virginia • Virginia judicial elections • Judicial selection in Virginia