Johnson's years of appointed and elected service on the high court give her the seniority to succeed Chief Justice Catherine "Kitty" Kimball early next year, the court said in a unanimous ruling. Justice Jeffrey Victory, who is white, argued Johnson's appointed service shouldn't count and he deserved to be chief justice.
Voters elected Johnson in 1994 to the state appeals court, and she was assigned to the Supreme Court as part of settlement of an earlier lawsuit that claimed the system for electing justices diluted black voting strength and violated the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
