The building was finished in 1914 and also houses the state's law library, while the courtroom is also used by the Oregon Court of Appeals.

[2] The newest justice receives the smallest office (nicknamed "the broom closet") and is responsible for opening the door when a conference is interrupted.

[3] When a state court judge retires, resigns, or dies before completing a term, the Governor may appoint another qualified person to the position.

[2] On occasion, a judge will leave office at the end of a term, in which case a general election determines their replacement.

[1] The state supreme court is responsible for admitting new lawyers to practice in Oregon, disciplining attorneys, and appointing members to the Board of Bar Examiners.

[2] This board of a minimum of fourteen members is responsible for administering the bar exam and screening prospective lawyers before admitting applicants to practice law in Oregon.

[1] The Commission on Judicial Fitness and Disability investigates all reports of abuses and makes recommendations to the Supreme Court on any actions that may need to occur.

[1] The Supreme Court can then suspend judges, censure them, remove them from office, or take no action.

[1] As administrator the chief justice is also the recipient of many reports from the court system including non-legal employees of the department.

A. Stratton, and W. H. Holmes, until 1889 when a law was passed that included a provision that the chief justice take over this responsibility.

[11] Thus the Oregon Supreme Court can hear appeals for cases based on both federal and state law.

[14] Following the journey of the Lewis and Clark Expedition in 1805, the region known as Oregon Country experienced increased activity and exploration by Europeans and Americans.

Beginning with the fur trade, settlement by Euro-Americans began as early as 1811 with the founding of Fort Astoria and slowly increased until the 1830s.

[15] In the 1830s additional settlement occurred, agricultural production increased, and missionaries started religious missions in the region.

In 1835, the first trial in the region was held with John Kirk Townsend presiding as magistrate over a murder charge.

In 1841, pioneer Ewing Young died without an heir or will in the unorganized lands of what are now the states of Idaho, Washington, and Oregon.

[18] In February of that year, settlers met at Champoeg to discuss the creation of a government, including a judiciary to deal with the execution of Young's estate.

[18] Although the overall government plans fell through, the group of pioneers and mountain men did elect a Supreme Judge to exercise probate powers.

[5] In 1843, a later set of meetings at Champoeg created the Provisional Government of Oregon with a judiciary consisting of a Supreme Judge and two justices of the peace for trial level courts.

With the resolution of the boundary issue, Britain retained the territory north of the 49th degree of latitude, with the United States taking the land south to the border of Mexican control California.

[8][21] Governor Thayer then appointed James K. Kelly, Reuben P. Boise, and Paine Page Prim to the court as temporary justices until elections could be held.

[23] In 1906, the Oregon court upheld a maximum hour law for women in State v. Muller, 48 Or.

Due partly to a brief by future U.S. Supreme Court justice Louis Brandeis, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the Oregon law in Muller v. Oregon, 208 U.S. 412 (1908) despite ruling in 1905 in Lochner v. New York that a maximum hour law for bakers was unconstitutional.

315, 51 P.2d 674 (1935) that the 14th Amendment did not protect Communist Party organizers from prosecution under Oregon's criminal syndicate law.

[26] The following year, 1982, the court received its first female member when Governor Vic Atiyeh appointed Betty Roberts as an associate justice.

[29] In the early years of the Supreme Court, business was conducted at a variety of locations in downtown Salem.

The newest members of the court are Stephen Bushong, Bronson James and Aruna Masih, who joined in 2023.

All of the seven current justices first joined the court as appointees of the governor of Oregon to fill mid-term vacancies.

These cases cover a wide range of topics from the constitutionality of various ballot measures to contract law to torts and even to the location of the capital when Oregon was still a territory.