Judicial reform panel discusses adding intermediate appellate court
by admin on 30/09/09 at 6:12 am
The Charleston Gazette
By Andrew Clevenger
September 30, 2009
CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Several people on Tuesday encouraged a group looking for ways to improve West Virginia’s judiciary system to recommend a new layer of courts between the state’s 31 circuit courts and the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals.
The Independent Commission on Judicial Reform, appointed by Gov. Joe Manchin in April to study the state’s judiciary, held its final public meeting Tuesday at the state Capitol. Commissioners discussed campaign finance and how to select judges at previous meetings.
Charleston lawyer Mark Sadd, who recently co-authored an article judicial reform in West Virginia, said that West Virginia is the only state in the nation in which litigants don’t have an automatic right to appeal their case.
As the sole outlier, he said, “West Virginia has a burden to demonstrate that its judiciary is accountable, fair and even-handed.”
As it stands now, the state Supreme Court is the only appellate court in West Virginia. Because the Supreme Court — which, when workers’ compensation cases are included, is the busiest in the nation — chooses the cases it accepts, some judicial errors from lower courts inevitably don’t get corrected, Sadd said.
In addition, the high court’s caseload doesn’t allow them to produce enough written opinions that help create a uniform application of the state’s laws, he said.
All of this can erode public confidence in the judiciary, he said.
