Arizona Supreme Court
the highest court of the U.S. state of Arizona
The Arizona Supreme Court is the state supreme court of the U.S. state of Arizona. Sitting in the Supreme Court building in downtown Phoenix, the court consists of a chief justice, a vice chief justice, and five associate justices. Each justice is appointed by the governor of Arizona from a list recommended by a bipartisan commission. Justices stand for retention in an election two years after their appointment and then every six years. They must retire at age 70.
Court history
The court started in 1912 with three justices. Alfred Franklin, Donnell L. Cunningham, and Henry D. Ross took office on February 14, 1912. In 1949, the Court expanded from three to five justices. In 2016 it was further expanded from five to seven justices. This expansion was criticized at the time by some as court packing.
The public source identifies “Arizona Supreme Court” as the highest court of the U.S. state of Arizona. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Arizona, Supreme and Court.
Why this record matters
A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Arizona Supreme Court”, the useful work is to connect “the highest court of the U.S. state of Arizona” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.
Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 25, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q4791452. The Library of Congress control number is n83127589. Authority coordinates are 33.447, -112.092. 3 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1912, 1949 and 2016.
A concise general-reference account can conceal disagreements about scope, terminology or the weight assigned to individual sources. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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Three-step research path
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Questions for further research
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This entry incorporates text from “Arizona Supreme Court” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.