[3] He was elected to the Wisconsin State Assembly in 1858 to represent Buffalo, Jackson, and Trempealeau counties.

He served the as the deputy clerk of one of the territory's district courts for the next three years, until he opened a law practice in Boise in 1867.

In 1871 Prickett ran for a full one-year term as Boise mayor as a Radical Republican.

[5] On January 13, 1876, President Ulysses S. Grant nominated Prickett to be Associate Justice of the Idaho Territorial Supreme Court, and he was confirmed by the senate six days later.

[6] As his four-year term was expiring, President Rutherford B. Hayes renominated him for the same position on January 16, 1880, and he was confirmed by the senate five days later.