PROVIDENCE – The Senate today confirmed Paul A. Suttell as the R.I. Supreme Court’s new chief justice.
Suttell, 60, was nominated to the post by Gov. Donald L. Carcieri on May 28. He replaces Frank J. Williams, who retired last December. Suttell had already served on the five-member court as an associate justice since 2003.
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The House of Representatives unanimously approved Suttell’s nomination on Tuesday. The Senate Judiciary Committee endorsed him later the same day.
Carcieri will now need to make another Supreme Court appointment to fill the seat that Suttell had held.
In addition to his responsibilities as a jurist, the chief justice also serves as the head of the state judicial system, overseeing the judiciary’s budget and appointing the court administrator whose staff handles the judiciary’s budgetary and administrative affairs.
“I commend the House and Senate for their swift and unanimous confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Paul A. Suttell as the Chief Justice of the Rhode Island Supreme Court,” Gov. Donald L. Carcieri said in a statement. “Justice Suttell has a lifelong record of service to the people of Rhode Island, first as a member of the Rhode Island House of Representatives and later serving on the Family Court and the Rhode Island Supreme Court.”
Suttell sailed through his confirmation hearings after winning wide praise from other members of the state’s legal community. Williams, his predecessor as chief justice, told Providence Business News earlier this month that Suttell was “an excellent choice, outstanding.”
Suttell is “a little more low-key than I am, but I expect he will be just as effective,” Williams said.
Before he was elevated to the Supreme Court, Suttell served for 13 years on the R.I. Family Court. From 1983 to 1990 he was a Republican member of the R.I. House of Representatives, serving as deputy minority leader for five years.
Suttell graduated from Moses Brown School in Providence and received his bachelor’s degree from Northwestern University in 1971. He went on to earn a law degree at Suffolk University Law School, graduating in 1976, and was admitted to the Rhode Island Bar the same year.
Suttell is a member of the American, Rhode Island, Massachusetts and Newport County Bar Associations; the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges; and the American Academy of Adoption Attorneys.
Suttell lives in Little Compton with his wife, Mary. They have two children, William and Grace.
He will be sworn in by Carcieri in a ceremony scheduled for Thursday, July 16, 2009 at 1 p.m. at the Rhode Island Statehouse.
