Your feedback ensures we stay focused on the facts that matter to you most—take our survey.
Thomas Saylor
Thomas Saylor (Republican Party) was a judge of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. He assumed office in 1998. He left office on December 31, 2021.
Saylor served as chief justice from January 2015 to April 2021.[1]
Saylor was first elected to the state supreme court on November 4, 1997. He was retained in 2007 and 2017.[2] He retired on December 31, 2021, due to Pennsylvania's mandatory retirement age for judges.[1] To read more about judicial selection in Pennsylvania, 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.[3] Todd received a confidence score of Mild Republican.[4] Click here to read more about this study.
Before joining the state supreme court, Saylor served as a judge on the Pennsylvania Superior Court from 1994 to 1998. He also worked as the state's First Deputy Attorney General, director of the state Bureau of Consumer Protection, and First Assistant District Attorney in Somerset County, Pennsylvania.[5]
Biography
Saylor was born in Meyersdale, Pennsylvania, on December 14, 1946.[6][7] He received a bachelor's degree and a master of laws from the University of Virginia in 1969 and 2004, respectively. Saylor received a law degree from Columbia University in 1972.[8]
Saylor began his legal career in general practice from 1972 to 1982. During that time, he also worked as the First Assistant District Attorney in Somerset County, Pennsylvania, from 1973 to 1976. In 1982, Saylor became the director of the Pennsylvania Bureau of Consumer Protection. He left the position in 1983 to become the state's First Deputy Attorney General, a position he held until 1987, at which point he returned to private practice.[5]
In 1993, Saylor was elected to the Pennsylvania Superior Court and assumed office at the start of 1994. He served as a judge on the court until his election to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court in 1997.[5] He served as the chief justice of the state supreme court from January 2015 to April 2021.[1] Saylor retired on December 31, 2021, due to Pennsylvania's mandatory retirement age for judges.[1]
Elections
Pennsylvania Supreme Court (1998-2021)
Saylor was first elected to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court on November 4, 1997. He was retained in 2007 and 2017.[2] He retired on December 31, 2021, due to Pennsylvania's mandatory retirement age for judges.[1]
2021
Saylor's seat was up for election in 2021. Under Pennsylvania's mandatory retirement law, judges must retire at the end of the year in which they become 75 years old.[1] Saylor turned 75 on December 14, 2021, and retired on December 31, 2021.[6][1]
2017
Saylor was retained by voters on November 7, 2017, receiving 68.3% of the vote.[9]
| Pennsylvania Supreme Court 2017 general election results | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Candidates | Votes | Percent | ||
Thomas Saylor (R) 
|
1,074,905 | 68.3% | ||
| Against retention | 500,162 | 31.8% | ||
2007
Saylor was retained by voters on November 6, 2007, receiving 66.9% of the vote.[10]
| Pennsylvania Supreme Court 2007 general election results | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Candidates | Votes | Percent | ||
| Thomas Saylor (R)
|
1,184,546 | 66.9% | ||
| Against retention | 586,330 | 33.1% | ||
1997
Saylor was first elected on November 6, 2007, defeating Joseph Del Sole (D) in the general election. Saylor received 53.2% of the vote to Del Sole's 46.8%.[11]
| Pennsylvania Supreme Court 1997 general election results | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Candidates | Votes | Percent | ||
| Joseph Del Sole (D) | 1,062,225 | 46.8% | ||
| Thomas Saylor (R)
|
1,208,043 | 53.2% | ||
Pennsylvania Superior Court (1994-1998)
Saylor was first elected to the Pennsylvania Superior Court in 1993. He left office after winning election to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court in 1997.
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.[12]
The five resulting categories of Confidence Scores were:
- Strong Democrat
- Mild Democrat
- Indeterminate[13]
- 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.
Thomas
Saylor
Pennsylvania
- Partisan Confidence Score:
Mild Republican - Judicial Selection Method:
Elected - Key Factors:
- Was a registered Republican as of 2020
- Donated less than $2,000 to Republican candidates
- Received donations from Republican-affiliated individuals or organizations
Partisan Profile
Details:
Saylor ran for the Pennsylvania Supreme Court as a Republican. He donated $750 to Republican candidates. He received $83,927 from the Pennsylvania Republican Party. Pennsylvania was a Republican trifecta when he was elected.
Other Scores:
Bonica and Woodruff campaign finance scores (2012)
In October 2012, political science professors Adam Bonica and Michael Woodruff of Stanford University attempted to determine the partisan ideology of state supreme court justices. They created a scoring system in which a score above 0 indicated a more conservative-leaning ideology, while scores below 0 were more liberal.
Saylor received a campaign finance score of 0.3, indicating a conservative ideological leaning. This was more conservative than the average score of -0.02 that justices received in Pennsylvania.
The study was based on data from campaign contributions by the judges themselves, the partisan leaning of those who contributed to the judges' campaigns, or, in the absence of elections, the ideology of the appointing body (governor or legislature). This study was not a definitive label of a justice, but an academic summary of various relevant factors.[14]
Noteworthy cases
Commonwealth v. Muniz (2017)
In Commonwealth v. Muniz, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled that Pennsylvania’s Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act (SORNA) could not apply retroactively to a defendant who was found guilty of a sex crime before the legislation took effect.[15] The court ruled that SORNA’s registration requirements constituted a criminal punishment and that the ex post facto clauses of the U.S. and Pennsylvania Constitutions prevented the state from punishing defendants beyond what the law allowed at the time of his or her crime. The state had argued that registration was not a punishment and therefore did not fall within the ex post facto clauses. Saylor dissented from the majority opinion, agreeing with the state that registration was not a punishment and, therefore, SORNA’s retroactive application of longer registration periods did not violate either the state or federal ex post facto clause.[15]
Commonwealth v. Beaman (2005)
On August 15, 2005, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court upheld the state's practice of stopping motorists at highway checkpoints in search of drivers under the influence of alcohol. Saylor wrote for the majority, saying, "the Court has found that suspicionless stops at such roadblocks are constitutionally reasonable." Writing for the dissent, Justice Russell Nigro (D) said that less-intrusive practical alternatives existed and that "DUI roadblocks are a waste of limited resources and promote inefficient law enforcement."[16] In the majority opinion, Saylor wrote, "The judiciary is in poor position to make judgments concerning the most effective among multiple reasonable police alternatives."[17] The full text of the majority opinion can be read here and the dissenting opinion can be found here.
See also
External links
Footnotes
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 Penn Live Patriot News, "Chief Justice Thomas G. Saylor to relinquish Pa. Supreme Court’s top post months before he retires," March 1, 2021
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 OurCampaigns, "Saylor, Thomas G.," accessed Aug. 4, 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.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 The Unified Judicial System of Pennsylvania, "Justice Thomas G. Saylor," accessed Aug. 4, 2021
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 Philadelphia Business Journal, "Chief Justice Thomas Saylor to hand over Pennsylvania Supreme Court leadership role in April," March 2, 2021
- ↑ The Tribune-Democrat, "Meyersdale native to be sworn in as Pa. Supreme Court's chief justice," Jan. 4, 2015
- ↑ VoteSmart, "Thomas Saylor's Biography," accessed Aug. 4, 2021
- ↑ OurCampaigns, "PA Supreme Court Justice - Retention Vote," accessed Aug. 4, 2021
- ↑ OurCampaigns, "PA Supreme Court Justice Retention Vote," accessed Aug. 4, 2021
- ↑ OurCampaigns, "PA Supreme Court Justice," accessed Aug. 4, 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.
- ↑ Stanford University, "State Supreme Court Ideology and 'New Style' Judicial Campaigns," October 31, 2012
- ↑ 15.0 15.1 Pennsylvania Supreme Court, Commonwealth v. Muniz, filed July 19, 2017
- ↑ The Newspaper, "Dissenting Opinion," accessed Aug. 4, 2021
- ↑ The Newspaper, "PA Supreme Court Upholds Police Roadblocks," August 17, 2005
Federal courts:
Third Circuit Court of Appeals • U.S. District Court: Eastern District of Pennsylvania, Middle District of Pennsylvania, Western District of Pennsylvania • U.S. Bankruptcy Court: Eastern District of Pennsylvania, Middle District of Pennsylvania, Western District of Pennsylvania
State courts:
Supreme Court of Pennsylvania • Pennsylvania Superior Court • Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court • Pennsylvania Court of Common Pleas • Pennsylvania Magisterial Districts
State resources:
Courts in Pennsylvania • Pennsylvania judicial elections • Judicial selection in Pennsylvania
