West Virginia recently announced a new effort to use technology to make its appellate Court system more accessible.
On July 1, West Virginia will launch an intermediate appeals court that is a step below its Supreme Court. The Intermediate Court of Appeals (ICA) is authorized to hear appeals from family courts, civil cases from lower courts, guardianship appeals, and workers comp appeals among other things. The ICA will consist of three judges. The initial 3 judges were appointed by the Governor; in the future, judges will be elected on a staggered basis.The ICA’s headquarters and clerk’s office will be in Charleston. The three-judge panel will sit in Charleston.
All that’s not necessarily newsworthy. What is newsworthy is how the state is trying to make appeals to the ICA more user-friendly and accessible.
The state plans to equip five geographically diverse courthouses in the state with the requisite video and audio equipment to allow the ICA and justices to hear all appeals virtually. By doing so, litigants can participate in their appeals without being put to the expense and disruption of travel. According to the Chief Justice of the West Virginia Supreme Court, as quoted in a recent article appearing in the Bar Association’s Spring 2022 edition of The West Virginia Lawyer (Keeping Courts Accessible, by West Virginia Supreme Court Chief Justice, John Hutchison), the courthouses were selected so that no litigant will have to travel more than 90 minutes to participate in an appellate hearing.
To insure appropriate decorum, each courthouse will have a dedicated ICA courtroom with a bailiff and staff employee. The courtrooms will be equipped with a secure, professionally installed closed-circuit system. And by setting up spaces that are designed solely to be used to conduct hearings remotely, you eliminate the problem I