Kevin Patrick Yeary
Kevin Patrick Yeary (Republican Party) is a judge for Place 4 of the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. He assumed office on January 1, 2015. His current term ends on December 31, 2026.
Yeary (Republican Party) is running for re-election for the Place 4 judge of the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. He is on the ballot in the Republican primary on March 3, 2026.[source]
Yeary first became a member of the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals through a partisan election. To read more about judicial selection in Texas, 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.[1] Yeary received a confidence score of Mild Republican.[2] Click here to read more about this study.
Biography
Yeary received his bachelor's degree in English communication arts from St. Mary's University in 1988. He received his J.D. from St. Mary's University in 1988.[3]
After graduation, Yeary worked as a briefing attorney to Bill White, a judge on the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. He then worked at Hedges & Walsh as an associate attorney from 1992 to 1995. He spent three years as an assistant district attorney in Dallas and Harris counties. From 1998 to 2014, Yeary was an assistant criminal district attorney in Bexar County.[3]
Elections
2026
See also: Texas Supreme Court elections, 2026
General election
The primary will occur on March 3, 2026. The general election will occur on November 3, 2026. General election candidates will be added here following the primary.
Democratic primary
Democratic primary for Texas Court of Criminal Appeals Place 4
Audra Riley (D) is running in the Democratic primary for Texas Court of Criminal Appeals Place 4 on March 3, 2026.
Candidate | ||
 | Audra Riley | |
| ||||
 = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey. | ||||
| If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey. | ||||
Do you want a spreadsheet of this type of data? Contact our sales team. | ||||
Republican primary
Republican primary for Texas Court of Criminal Appeals Place 4
Incumbent Kevin Patrick Yeary (R) is running in the Republican primary for Texas Court of Criminal Appeals Place 4 on March 3, 2026.
Candidate | ||
 | Kevin Patrick Yeary | |
| ||||
| = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey. | ||||
| If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey. | ||||
Do you want a spreadsheet of this type of data? Contact our sales team. | ||||
Endorsements
Ballotpedia is gathering information about candidate endorsements. To send us an endorsement, click here.
2020
See also: Texas Supreme Court elections, 2020
General election
General election for Texas Court of Criminal Appeals Place 4
Incumbent Kevin Patrick Yeary defeated Tina Yoo Clinton in the general election for Texas Court of Criminal Appeals Place 4 on November 3, 2020.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ | | Kevin Patrick Yeary (R) | 54.8 | 5,974,016 |
 | Tina Yoo Clinton (D) | 45.2 | 4,924,207 | |
| Total votes: 10,898,223 | |||
| = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey. | ||||
| If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey. | ||||
Do you want a spreadsheet of this type of data? Contact our sales team. | ||||
Democratic primary election
Democratic primary for Texas Court of Criminal Appeals Place 4
Tina Yoo Clinton defeated Steven Miears in the Democratic primary for Texas Court of Criminal Appeals Place 4 on March 3, 2020.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ | | Tina Yoo Clinton | 80.5 | 1,380,356 |
 | Steven Miears | 19.5 | 334,474 | |
| Total votes: 1,714,830 | |||
| = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey. | ||||
| If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey. | ||||
Do you want a spreadsheet of this type of data? Contact our sales team. | ||||
Republican primary election
Republican primary for Texas Court of Criminal Appeals Place 4
Incumbent Kevin Patrick Yeary advanced from the Republican primary for Texas Court of Criminal Appeals Place 4 on March 3, 2020.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ | | Kevin Patrick Yeary | 100.0 | 1,679,193 |
| Total votes: 1,679,193 | |||
| = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey. | ||||
| If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey. | ||||
Do you want a spreadsheet of this type of data? Contact our sales team. | ||||
2014
- See also: Texas judicial elections, 2014
Yeary ran for election to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals in 2014. He defeated Quanah Parker (L) and Judith Sanders-Castro (G) in the general election on November 4, 2014, receiving 76.2% of the vote.[4]
Campaign themes
2026
Ballotpedia survey responses
See also: Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection
Kevin Patrick Yeary has not yet completed Ballotpedia's 2026 Candidate Connection survey. If you are Kevin Patrick Yeary, click here to fill out Ballotpedia's 2026 Candidate Connection survey.
Who fills out Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey?
Any candidate running for elected office, at any level, can complete Ballotpedia's Candidate Survey. Completing the survey will update the candidate's Ballotpedia profile, letting voters know who they are and what they stand for. More than 24,000 candidates have taken Ballotpedia's candidate survey since we launched it in 2015. Learn more about the survey here.
Help improve Ballotpedia - send us candidate contact info.
Campaign finance summary
Campaign finance information for this candidate is not yet available from OpenSecrets. That information will be published here once it is available.
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.[5]
The five resulting categories of Confidence Scores were:
- Strong Democrat
- Mild Democrat
- Indeterminate[6]
- 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.
Kevin Patrick
Yeary
Texas
- Partisan Confidence Score:
Mild Republican - Judicial Selection Method:
Elected - Key Factors:
- Was a registered Republican
- Donated less than $2,000 to Republican candidates
- State was a Republican trifecta at time of appointment
Partisan Profile
Details:
Yeary ran as a Republican for his seat on the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. He donated $757 to Republican organizations. Texas was a Republican trifecta at the time of his election. He was endorsed by the Conservative Republicans of Texas, the Tarrant Republican Club, and Texas Conservative Review.
Court of Criminal Appeals judicial selection in Texas
- See also: Judicial selection in Texas
The nine judges of the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals are selected in statewide partisan elections. The elected justices and judges serve six-year terms, after which they must run for re-election if they wish to remain on the court.[7]
Qualifications
To serve on any of the appellate courts, a judge must be:
- a U.S. citizen;
- a resident of Texas;
- licensed to practice law in the state;
- between the ages of 35 and 75;*[8][9] and
- a practicing lawyer and/or judge for at least 10 years.[7]
Presiding judge
The presiding judge of the Texas Criminal Court of Appeals is selected by voters at large. He or she serves in that capacity for a full six-year term.[7]
Vacancies
In the event of a midterm vacancy, the governor appoints a replacement who must be confirmed by the Texas Senate. The appointee serves until the next general election, in which he or she may compete to serve for the remainder of the unexpired term.[7]
The map below highlights how vacancies are filled in state supreme courts across the country.
See also
2026 Elections
External links
Footnotes
- ↑ 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.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 LinkedIn, "Kevin Patrick Yeary," accessed July 30, 2021
- ↑ Texas SOS, "2014 General Election Results," accessed July 30, 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.
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 7.3 Cite error: Invalid
<ref>tag; no text was provided for refs namedTXgeneral - ↑ Texas State Historical Association, "Judiciary," accessed September 12, 2014
- ↑ While no judge older than 74 may run for office, sitting judges who turn 75 are permitted to remain on the court until their terms expire.
Federal courts:
Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals • U.S. District Court: Eastern District of Texas, Western District of Texas, Northern District of Texas, Southern District of Texas • U.S. Bankruptcy Court: Eastern District of Texas, Western District of Texas, Northern District of Texas, Southern District of Texas
State courts:
Texas Supreme Court • Texas Court of Appeals • Texas Court of Criminal Appeals • Texas District Courts • Texas County Courts • Texas County Courts at Law • Texas Statutory Probate Courts • Texas Justice of the Peace Courts
State resources:
Courts in Texas • Texas judicial elections • Judicial selection in Texas
 |
State of Texas Austin (capital) |
|---|---|
| Elections |
What's on my ballot? | Elections in 2026 | How to vote | How to run for office | Ballot measures |
| Government |
Who represents me? | U.S. President | U.S. Congress | Federal courts | State executives | State legislature | State and local courts | Counties | Cities | School districts | Public policy |
