Who is running for Oklahoma Supreme Court, District 9, Retention: Justice Richard Darby in 2026?

Justice, Oklahoma Supreme Court, District 9

Richard Darby has been the District 9 justice on the Oklahoma Supreme Court since Governor Mary Fallin appointed him in April 2018⁴. Before that he was a trial judge in southwest Oklahoma for more than 30 years, serving as district judge for the 3rd Judicial District from 1994⁴. This is a nonpartisan retention question: voters answer yes or no on keeping the judge, and no party is listed on the ballot⁸.

• Justice, Oklahoma Supreme Court, District 9, since 2018; Chief Justice for the two-year term that began January 1, 2021; member of the Appellate Division of the Oklahoma Court on the Judiciary³⁵
• District Judge, 3rd Judicial District (Jackson, Kiowa, Tillman, Greer and Harmon counties), 1994 to 2018; earlier a special judge and associate district judge for Jackson County⁴
• Private law practice in Altus before becoming a judge³
• JD, University of Oklahoma, 1984; BA in political science, Southwestern Oklahoma State University³
• Appointed by Governor Mary Fallin on April 5, 2018, succeeding Justice Joseph Watt. The governor's office said Fallin selected Darby from three applicants submitted by the Oklahoma Judicial Nominating Commission⁴. Voters retained him in November 2020⁵. His current term ends January 11, 2027, so the 2026 vote decides whether he serves a new six-year term².
• Oklahoma Call for Reproductive Justice v. Drummond (March 21, 2023): in a 5 to 4 decision, the court's majority held that the Oklahoma Constitution protects a woman's right to end a pregnancy when necessary to preserve her life. Darby was one of the four dissenting justices. In his separate dissent he wrote that the majority had created a new state constitutional right based on an exception in a statute and that both challenged statutes were constitutional as written⁷⁶.