Mont. Code Ann. » TITLE 3. JUDICIARY, COURTS · CHAPTER 2. SUPREME COURT · Part 1. Supreme Court Justices
Montana Code Annotated

Mont. Code Ann. § 3-2-101 (2026)

Number, Election, And Term Of Office

✓ current as of May 2026
Find cases: SyfertCases citing this section MT-LEGleg.mt.gov JustiaTitle on Justia CornellLII Search CasesGoogle Scholar
  1. MCA Contents
  2. TITLE 3
  3. CHAPTER 2
  4. Part 1
  5. 3-2-101 Number, election, and term of office

TITLE 3. JUDICIARY, COURTS

CHAPTER 2. SUPREME COURT

Part 1. Supreme Court Justices

Number, Election, And Term Of Office

3-2-101. Number, election, and term of office. The supreme court consists of a chief justice and six associate justices who are elected by the qualified electors of the state at large at the general state elections next preceding the expiration of the terms of office of their predecessors, respectively, and hold their offices for the term of 8 years from and after the first Monday of January next succeeding their election.

History: En. Sec. 12, C. Civ. Proc. 1895; re-en. Sec. 6244, Rev. C. 1907; amd. Sec. 1, Ch. 31, Ex. L. 1919; re-en. Sec. 8790, R.C.M. 1921; Cal. C. Civ. Proc. Sec. 40; re-en. Sec. 8790, R.C.M. 1935; amd. Sec. 1, Ch. 13, L. 1973; R.C.M. 1947, 93-201; amd. Sec. 1, Ch. 683, L. 1979.

Notes of Decisions
Cited in 7 cases (2 in the last 5 years), 1990–2022 · leading case: Reichert v. State Ex Rel. Mcculloch, 2012 MT 111 (Mont. 2012).
Sort: Relevance Newest Treatment
Reichert v. State Ex Rel. Mcculloch, 2012 MT 111 (Mont. 2012). · cites it 21× “VII, § 3(1); § 3-2-101, MCA. The justices serve eight-year terms, which run from the first Monday of January following the justice's election to (but not including) the first Monday of January eight years hence.”
State Ex Rel. Racicot v. Dist. Court of the First Jud. Dist., 794 P.2d 1180 (Mont. 1990). · cites it 8× “VII, § 7(2), and the applicable statute (§ 3-2-101, MCA), the term of office for a justice on the Supreme Court is eight years.”
W. Tradition P'ship, Inc. v. Attorney Gen., 2011 MT 328 (Mont. 2011). · cites it 4× “VII, § 8; § 3-2-101, MCA; and § 3-5-201, MCA. Judicial elections are nonpartisan.”
McDonald v. Jacobsen, 2022 MT 160 (Mont. 2022). · cites it 5× “VII, § 3(1); § 3-2-101, MCA. They serve eight-year terms, and one or two seats come up for election every two years.”
Gollehon v. State, 1999 MT 210 (Mont. 1999). “5 and 7 because at the time the case was decided, this Court was not properly constituted pursuant to §§ 3-2-101, 3-5-201, 3-1-1010 and -14, MCA, Article II, Sections 4,13,16, 17, 34, and Article VII, Section 3, of the Montana Constitution.”
McDonald v. Jacobsen, 2021 MT 287 (Mont. 2021). · cites it 2× “402, § 8, the certification for the ballot of the bill’s modified provisions of § 3-2-101, MCA. ¶5 McDonald served her complaint and summons on the Secretary on May 13, 2021.”
State Ex Rel. Racicot v. Dist. Cour (Mont. 1990). · cites it 3× “Section 3-2-101, MCA, provides that persons elected hold their offices for a term of eight years.”
Annotations are extracted automatically from the opinions in the Syfert caselaw corpus and ranked by authority, recency, and treatment. Dots show Syfertize treatment of the citing case itself.