Govenor taps Kuehn for seat on high court
Gov. Kevin Stitt named Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals Judge Dana Lynn Kuehn to the state Supreme Court on Monday, marking the first time the high court will have a majority of justices appointed by Republican governors.
Kuehn, 50, of Tulsa, a former state prosecutor and associate district judge, has been on the Oklahoma
Court of Criminal Appeals since 2017. She is currently the presiding judge on the court, which is the top appellate court in Oklahoma for criminal cases.
She will be the third woman on the ninejustice Supreme Court. Kuehn fills the vacancy created by the Feb. 1 retirement of Justice Tom Colbert. Kuehn's appointment does not require legislative confirmation.
“Kuehn is a diligent public servant, and is well versed in many complex areas of the law. I have every confidence in her ability to uphold and defend justice for Oklahomans," Stitt said Monday.
Kuehn is Stitt's third pick in less than three years to the Supreme Court, and the court now has five justices appointed by Republicans. Justices M. John Kane IV and Dustin Rowe were Stitt's other selections. Justice James R. Winchester was appointed by former Gov. Frank Keating, and Justice Richard Darby was appointed by former Gov. Mary Fallin.
Two of Stitt's three picks have replaced justices who were appointed by Democrats.
The Oklahoma Supreme Court is the highest court in the state for civil cases. In the last two years, it has issued major rulings against Stitt on the issues of tribal gaming compacts and Medicaid expansion.
On her application to the Judicial Nominating Commission, Kuehn said she wanted to serve on the state Supreme Court “to promote faithfulness in legal principles with the mandates of our federal and State Constitutions and case precedent that binds the judiciary.”
She wrote, “I understand the role of a litigator, a trial judge, an administrator, a director and an appellate judge. I will use the value of these combined experiences if chosen.”
Kuehn was one of three candidates presented to Stitt by the Judicial Nominating Commission. The other two were Oklahoma Court of Civil Appeals Judge Stacie Hixon and Tulsa County District Judge Rebecca B. Nightingale.
Kuehn graduated from Jenks High School in 1989 and received a BA in political science from Oklahoma State University in 1993. She received her law degree in 1996 from the University of Tulsa.
She worked for the Tulsa County District Attorney's office from 1996 to 1999 and again from 2002 to 2006. She served as an associate district judge in Tulsa County from 2006 to 2017, handling civil and criminal cases, though the majority of her time as a trial judge was spent presiding over a civil docket, according to her application. She has also served as an adjunct professor of law at the University of Tulsa College of Law.
Fallin appointed her to the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals.
During her time as presiding judge this year, the court has extended the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in McGirt v. Oklahoma to the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw and Seminole Nations' reservations.
Kuehn wrote the opinion in the case of death row inmate Shaun Michael Bosse. That case affirmed the existence of the Chickasaw Nation and the principle that the state did not have jurisdiction to try Bosse because the three murders for which he was convicted occurred on Indian land and the victims were Native Americans.
The Bosse opinion rejected the argument that the state had concurrent jurisdiction over the case because Bosse is a nonIndian. The court also rejected the state's arguments that Bosse shouldn't have been able to make an appeal on jurisdictional grounds because he hadn't raised the issue in the first appeal of his convictions.
Stitt is an outspoken critic of the McGirt decision and has called for the Supreme Court to reverse its rulings in the case.