Kevin M. Dougherty

Democratic Party

Pennsylvania Supreme Court

Tenure

2016 - Present

Term ends

2035

Years in position

10

Compensation

Base salary

$261,976

Elections and appointments

Last election

November 4, 2025

Education

Bachelor's

Temple University, 1985

Law

Antioch School of Law, 1987

Contact

Official website

Campaign website

Campaign Facebook

Campaign X

Campaign Instagram

Campaign YouTube

Personal LinkedIn

Kevin M. Dougherty (Democratic Party) is a judge of thePennsylvania Supreme Court. He assumed office on January 5, 2016. His current term ends on December 31, 2035.

Dougherty (Democratic Party) ran for re-election for judge of thePennsylvania Supreme Court. He won in the retention election onNovember 4, 2025.

Dougherty first became a member of thePennsylvania Supreme Court through a partisan election. He was first elected to the court in 2015. To read more about judicial selection in Pennsylvania,click here.

Prior to being elected Pennsylvania Supreme Court Justice, Dougherty was an administrative judge for thePhiladelphia County Court of Common Pleas inPhiladelphia County,Pennsylvania.^[1] He was elected to thePhiladelphia County Court of Common Pleas in 2001 and retained in 2011.

In 2020, Ballotpedia publishedBallotpedia 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 aConfidence Score describing our confidence in the degree of partisanship exhibited by the justices' past partisan behavior, before they joined the court.^[2] Dougherty received a confidence score ofStrong Democrat.^[3]Click here to read more about this study.

2025 battleground election

See also:Pennsylvania Supreme Court elections, 2025

Ballotpedia identified the November 4 general election as abattleground race. The summary below is from our coverage of this electionhere

ThreePennsylvania Supreme Court justices —Christine Donohue (D),Kevin M. Dougherty (D), andDavid N. Wecht (D) — wereretained in three elections held on November 4, 2025.

WHYY's Carmen Russell-Sluchansky wrote, "State judicial elections typically garner little attention, but Pennsylvania’s 2025 state Supreme Court races are shaping up to be the next major political battleground."^[4]

The state court had a 5-2 Democratic majority.^[5] At the time of the election, the court had been controlled by Democrats since2015, when Donohue, Dougherty, and Wecht won election to their seats.^[6]

Pennsylvania usedpartisan elections to select a justice for an initial 10-year term, and used aretention election to determine whether to keep them. If a justice was retained, they would serve another 10-year term. At the time of the election, Pennsylvania was one of eight states to usepartisan elections for the initial selection of a justice and one of 22 to useretention elections for the renewal of a term.

According to Pennsylvania's Code of Judicial Conduct, justices were limited in their ability to campaign.^[7] Both the Democratic and Republican parties said they would be involved in this race. TheRepublican State Leadership Committee ran ads on social media asking voters to vote against retaining the justices, which said, "In 2024, we voted by mail and flipped Pennsylvania red. This year, radical liberal judges are trying to secure another decade of power. We need you to stop them, show up again, vote 'no' in November."^[8] TheDemocratic National Committee announced on September 25 that they would invest six figures in the final weeks of the race, and Democratic politicians including Gov.Josh Shapiro (D), Sen.Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.), and Rep.Chris Deluzio (D) campaigned in favor of retention.^[9][10]

Since retention elections were established in 1968, only one Pennsylvania justice, Russell Nigro (D) in 2005, was not retained.^[11] Since 2020, in 102 elections, 100 justices (98%) won retention. The most recent justice in the U.S. to not win retention wasYvonne Kauger in Oklahoma in2024.

Elections

2025

Endorsements

2015

See also:Pennsylvania judicial elections, 2015

Pennsylvania's judicial elections included a primary on May 19, 2015, and a general election on November 3, 2015. The filing deadline for candidates was March 11, 2015.

Pennsylvania Supreme Court, Three seats, General Election, 2015
Party		Candidate	Vote %	Votes
	Democratic	Kevin M. Dougherty	18.5%	1,079,835
	Democratic	David N. Wecht	18.4%	1,070,568
	Democratic	Christine Donohue	18.2%	1,059,167
	Republican	Judith Olson	15.2%	887,409
	Republican	Michael A. George	13.6%	796,124
	Republican	Anne Covey	13.6%	795,330
	Independent Judicial Alliance	Paul P. Panepinto	2.5%	144,403
		Write-in votes	0%	0
Total Votes				5,832,836
Source:Pennsylvania Department of State, "Unofficial General Election Results," November 3, 2015

Pennsylvania Supreme Court, Three seats, Democratic Primary, 2015
Candidate	Vote %	Votes
David N. Wecht	22.1%	256,761
Kevin M. Dougherty	22.0%	256,048
Christine Donohue	21.4%	248,325
Anne Lazarus	16.3%	189,127
Dwayne D. Woodruff	11.7%	136,127
John H. Foradora	6.6%	76,190
Write-in votes	0%	0
Total Votes		1,162,578
Source:Pennsylvania Department of State, "2015 Municipal Primary Unofficial Results," May 19, 2015

Recommendation

Dougherty wasrecommended by the Pennsylvania Bar Association "Based on his judicial and administrative experience and his work ethic, judicial temperament and integrity."^[12]

Endorsements

• Pennsylvania Democratic State Committee^[13]
• Liberty City LGBT Democratic Club
• Steel City Stonewall Democrats
• Capital Stonewall Democrats
• National Organization for Women
• Philadelphia Black Clergy
• Pittsburgh Building and Trades Council
• Pittsburgh Firefighters
• Pennsylvania AFL-CIO
• AFSCME District Council 33
• AFSCME Local Council 13
• Pennsylvania State Troopers Association
• Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 5
• Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 91
• Philadelphia Firefighters and Paramedics Union Local 22
• Allegheny Firefighter Local 1
• AFSCME District Council 47
• PASNAP^[14]

Race background

Three open seats were up for election on thePennsylvania Supreme Court in 2015. Going into the primary, there were 12 candidates running for the court. One open seat was the result of the retirement of Chief JusticeRonald Castille in December 2014. The other two seats were made vacant by resignations. In May 2013, JusticeJoan Orie Melvin resigned after her conviction for campaign corruption. The second resignation occurred in October 2014, when JusticeSeamus P. McCaffery left the court due to both his implication in an FBI investigation involving the exchange of referral fees between his wife and several law firms, and his involvement in a scandal wherein sexually explicit emails were forwarded from his personal email account to court employees.

JusticeCorreale Stevens was appointed to the bench by GovernorTom Corbett (R) in June 2013 to replaceJoan Orie Melvin. He ran unsuccessfully in 2015 to keep his seat on the court.^[15]

Campaign finances in the primary

May reporting period
The candidates for the May 19 primary had $2,127,498.74 in cash on hand as of the last pre-primary reporting period.Michael A. George (R) had the most cash on hand at $497,325.16, whileRebecca L. Warren (R) had the lowest total at $2,574.97. The biggest contribution during this reporting period was $50,000 from Ronald Caplan, president of PMC Property Group, to Democratic candidateKevin M. Dougherty.

Pre-primary campaign finance, May 2015[16]
Candidate	Party	Cash on hand ($)	Highest contribution ($)	Contributor(s)
Michael A. George	Republican	497,325.16	5,000	Friends of Rich Alloway
David N. Wecht	Democratic	450,877.64	20,000	Fairness PA
Kevin M. Dougherty	Democratic	422,421.91	50,000	Ronald Caplan, President, PMC Property Group
Anne Lazarus	Democratic	224,663.64	5,000	Fairness PA, Alan Ominsky
Anne Covey	Republican	149,229.72	25,000	Anthony & Catherine Misitano
John H. Foradora	Democratic	137,130.66	10,000	Monica Mitchell
Judith Olson	Republican	111,688.92	25,000	PA Future Fund
Christine Donohue	Democratic	53,299.01	10,000	Carpenters PAC of Philadelphia & Vicinity
Dwayne D. Woodruff	Democratic	42,129.39	5,000	Franco Harris, Former player, Pittsburgh Steelers Football Club
Correale Stevens	Republican	18,777.49	20,000	Alan H. Potamkin
Cheryl Lynn Allen	Republican	17,380.23	10,000	Fairness PA
Rebecca L. Warren	Republican	2,574.97	500	John Kasha

April reporting period
Three candidates reported campaign receipts exceeding $500,000 in finance reports filed on April 7.Kevin M. Dougherty (D) took the cash-on-hand lead with $584,666.22 in the bank, followed byDavid N. Wecht (D) at $546,220.24 andMichael A. George (R) at $508,459.63. Eight of the nine remaining primary candidates totaled approximately $898,000 on hand by early April, withRebecca L. Warren (R) having a negative cash balance. The fundraising advantage through March rested with Democratic candidates, who totaled $1.94 million on hand compared to $595,000 for Republican candidates.^[17]

Pre-primary campaign finance, April 2015[18]
Candidate	Party	Cash on hand ($)	Highest contribution ($)	Contributor(s)
Kevin M. Dougherty	Democratic	584,666.22	100,000	Local Union #98 I.B.E.W. Committee On Political Education
David N. Wecht	Democratic	546,220.24	25,000	Daniel Berger,Attorney
Michael A. George	Republican	508,459.63	500,000	Gary Lowenthal,Founder, Boyds Bears
John H. Foradora	Democratic	391,074.05	100,000	John H. Foradora
Anne Lazarus	Democratic	262,093.08	75,000	Anne Lazarus
Christine Donohue	Democratic	184,727.00	5,000	Commonwealth Heritage PAC, I.B.E.W. Local 5, Obermayer Rebmann Maxwell & Hippel and 13 individual donors
Anne Covey	Republican	56,540.38	25,000	PA Future Fund
Correale Stevens	Republican	44,101.58	5,000	Pennsylvania Society of Physicians Assistants, Gillespie, Miscavige, Ferdinand & Baranko LLC and four individual donors
Dwayne D. Woodruff	Democratic	29,514.80	5,000	Arthur J. Rooney II,President, Pittsburgh Steelers Football Club
Cheryl Lynn Allen	Republican	17,135.00	10,000	Eldora Ellison,Retired
Judith Olson	Republican	842.06	1,000	Carl G. Grefenstette,Director, Hillman Foundation
Rebecca L. Warren	Republican	-2,668.35	5,000	Rebecca L. Warren

April 8 candidate forum

A candidate forum at the Free Library of Philadelphia on April 8 showcased candidate concerns over the influence of money in judicial elections. Five candidates participated in the forum:Anne Lazarus (D),John H. Foradora (D),David N. Wecht (D),Dwayne D. Woodruff (D) andCheryl Lynn Allen (R). All of the candidates at the forum argued that more campaign cash presented issues for judicial races, though none believed that eliminating elections would be the right solution. Foradora argued that campaign cash potentially damages the court's integrity, while Woodruff suggested that higher finance requirements presented a barrier to entry for qualified candidates. Allen advocated for nonpartisan elections as a counterweight to increasing partisanship on the court.^[19]

Failed nominations

In February 2015, GovernorTom Wolf (D) nominated both Ken Gormley, a law professor for the Duquesne University School of Law, and Judge Thomas Kistler of theCentre County Court of Common Pleas. However, after a Christmas email sent by Kistler and a halt to confirm Gormley, Wolf said he planned no further nominations to thePennsylvania Supreme Court.^[20]

Kistler asked that his nomination be withdrawn after a report surfaced of a racially insensitive e-greeting sent out by Kistler to friends in 2013. The e-greeting depicted a black couple, with the male wearing prison garb behind a glass window and his female visitor speaking to him via a jailhouse phone. The caption attached to the e-greeting said, "Merry Christmas from the Johnsons," and Kistler sent the greeting with a subject heading of "Best Christmas card ever."^[21]

Gormley's nomination came under scrutiny when reports of harassment complaints filed in 2006 against Gormley were circulated among the Senate Judiciary Committee. An internal Duquesne University report, which had been cited in a lawsuit filed against Gormley, recommended that Gormley not supervise women because he had shared "an unsubstantiated rumor" regarding a female professor. The suit was later settled by the female professor and the university.^[21]

2011

See also:Pennsylvania judicial elections, 2011

Dougherty wasretained to the court of common pleas with a "yes" vote of 77.5 percent.^[22]

Campaign themes

2025

Ballotpedia survey responses

See also:Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection

Kevin M. Dougherty did not completeBallotpedia's 2025 Candidate Connection survey.

2015

Dougherty’s campaign website stated the following:

Campaign finance summary

Ballotpedia currently provides campaign finance data for all federal- and state-level candidates from 2020 and later. We are continuously working to expand our data to include prior elections. That information will be published here as we acquire it. If you would like to help us provide this data, please considerdonating to Ballotpedia.

Analysis

Ballotpedia Courts: State Partisanship (2020)

See also:Ballotpedia Courts: State Partisanship andBallotpedia Courts: Determiners and Dissenters

Last updated: June 15, 2020

In 2020, Ballotpedia publishedBallotpedia 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 presentedConfidence 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.^[25]

The five resulting categories ofConfidence Scores were:

• Strong Democrat
• Mild Democrat
• Indeterminate^[26]
• Mild Republican
• Strong Republican

This justice'sConfidence Score, as well as the factors contributing to that score, is presented below. The information below was current as of June 2020.

Noteworthy cases

Wolf v. Scarnati (2020)

See also:Lawsuits about state actions and policies in response to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, 2020-2021

Wolf v. Scarnati: On July 1, 2020, thePennsylvania Supreme Court ruled against legislative Republicans in favor of Gov.Tom Wolf (D), upholding his ability to maintain COVID-19 shutdown orders. The lawsuit stemmed from Wolf’s March 6, 2020, emergency disaster proclamation, which he renewed on June 3, 2020. On June 9, 2020, the Pennsylvania General Assembly adopted a concurrent resolution, HR836, seeking to terminate the disaster emergency, which was not presented to the governor for approval or veto. The governor did not comply. Three Republican state senators filed a complaint in the Commonwealth Court, asking the court to command Wolf to comply with their resolution by "issuing an executive order or proclamation ending the state of disaster emergency." Wolf asked the state supreme court to exercise extraordinary jurisdiction, thus removing the case to the high court. The state supreme court held that HR836 was a legal nullity because the Pennsylvania Constitution required that concurrent resolutions relating to emergency declarations be presented to the governor for approval or veto. As the General Assembly did not do so, the court refused to order Wolf to end the shutdown, stating, "The Pennsylvania Constitution does not empower the legislature to act unilaterally to suspend a law, and the Governor’s purported suspension of law did not violate the non-delegation doctrine." JusticeDavid N. Wecht wrote the court's opinion, which JusticesMax Baer,Debra Todd, andChristine Donohue joined. JusticeKevin M. Dougherty filed a separate opinion, concurring and dissenting in part.^[27]

No retroactive increase in sex offender registration periods

InCommonwealth 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.^[28] The court ruled that SORNA’s registration requirements constituted a criminal punishment and that the ex post facto clauses of theU.S. andPennsylvania Constitutions prevented the state from punishing defendants beyond what the law allowed at the time of his or her crime. Justice Dougherty authored the majority opinion.

State supreme court judicial selection in Pennsylvania

See also:Judicial selection in Pennsylvania

Theseven justices of thePennsylvania Supreme Court are selected inpartisan elections.^[29]

Justices serve 10-year terms, after which they must run in yes-noretention elections if they wish to remain on the court. A separate part of the ballot is designated for these elections, and justices' names appear without respect to party affiliation.^[29][30] To learn more about these elections, visit thePennsylvania judicial elections page.

Qualifications

To serve on the supreme court, a justice must:

• have state residence for at least one year;
• be a member of the state bar; and
• be under the age of 75.^[29][31]

Chief justice

ThePennsylvania Supreme Court chooses its chief justice by seniority; the title is held by the longest-serving justice on the court.^[29][32]

Vacancies

See also:How vacancies are filled in state supreme courts

In the event of a midterm vacancy, thegovernor appoints a successor who must be approved by a two-thirds vote of thePennsylvania Senate. Interim justices stand for election at the next municipal election occurring more than 10 months after the vacancy occurred.^[29]

By tradition, appointed interim judges of the supreme court, superior court, or court of appeals do not go on to run for permanent seats. In other words, the governor appoints these judges with the expectation that the judge will only fill the interim vacancy.^[29]

The map below highlights how vacancies are filled in state supreme courts across the country.

See also

Pennsylvania	Judicial Selection	More Courts
Courts in PennsylvaniaPennsylvania Commonwealth CourtPennsylvania Superior CourtPennsylvania Supreme Court	Elections:2026 •2025 •2024 •2023 •2022 •2021 •2020 •2019 •2018 •2017Gubernatorial appointmentsJudicial selection in Pennsylvania	Federal courtsState courtsLocal courts

External links

Footnotes

v • e Pennsylvania Supreme Court Judicial selection in Pennsylvania •2025 elections •Courts in Pennsylvania
Current judges	Kevin Brobson,Christine Donohue,Kevin M. Dougherty,Daniel D. McCaffery,Sallie Mundy,Debra Todd,David Wecht
Former judges	Max Baer,Ralph Cappy,Ronald Castille,J. Michael Eakin,Seamus McCaffery,Joan Orie Melvin,Thomas Saylor,Correale Stevens

v • e 2025 State Judicial Elections State supreme court elections by state Louisiana •Pennsylvania •Wisconsin Intermediate appellate court elections by state Louisiana •Pennsylvania •Washington •Wisconsin

	v • e State ofPennsylvania Harrisburg (capital)
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