CHARLESTON, W.Va. — A report given to the state legislature Tuesday recommends lawmakers reduce the number of county magistrates by eight and reallocate seven of the remaining 150 magistrates to county’s with busier caseloads.
The Center for State Courts was asked to take a look at how magistrates are distributed across the state. Currently, it’s the legislature that decides the number of magistrates in a county, which in recent years has been loosely based on caseload.
Researchers did a survey and several on-site visits and recommends magistrate allocation should be entirely based on a weighted caseload model.
“You use the weighted caseload model to calculate the workload for each county based on the number of cases of different types that are filed in that court every year. You figure out how many magistrates you would need to handle that workload and assign them to that particular county,” researcher Cynthia Lee said.
The National Center for State Courts also looked at sharing magistrates across county lines and connecting magistrates with the counties served by a regional jail but those proposals broke down for several reasons.
Whether or not state lawmakers want do deal with a potential political hot potato of eliminating magistrates from any particular county remains to be seen. The state Supreme Court has not weighed-in on the study’s results and recommendations.
State Director of Magistrate Court Services Janie Moore, a former longtime magistrate in Kanawha County, gave her opinion to lawmakers Tuesday.
“I think that we have one of the best West Virginia magistrate system that you could ever have in the state of West Virginia,” she said. “I’m proud of my magistrates. They work very hard. They work 24/7.”
The report also recommends no county would have fewer than two magistrates.
The report was presented during the final day of the legislature’s iterim committee meetings. It may or may not come up during the 60-day regular session.