Judge Recht, author of landmark W.Va. school funding decision, has died

CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Longtime Circuit Judge Arthur Recht, author of a landmark decision about West Virginia school funding, has died at age 80.

The state Supreme Court announced Recht’s death this morning. The Wheeling News-Register, the newspaper in the area where Recht served, also confirmed the judge’s death.

“One of West Virginia’s legal giants has passed,” stated Chief Justice Margaret Workman.

“Art Recht was a brilliant judge and a wonderful friend. He left an indelible mark on our state by the standards he shaped in public education for West Virginia children. Serving on the Supreme Court with him was a personal and professional pleasure. I respected, admired, and liked him immensely.”

Judge Arthur Recht

The Recht Decision that bears his name dealt with the equal funding of school systems in West Virginia.

The judge’s ruling said the state’s system was “outrageous” and was failing to tap a large portion of the state’s wealth for school support.

He also was at the center of judicial decisions that led to the closure of the Moundsville Penitentiary, which was more than a century old.

Recht began serving on the First Judicial Circuit in the Northern Panhandle in 1981. The circuit serves Brooke, Hancock and Ohio counties.

Gov. Gaston Caperton appointed Recht to fill a vacancy on the state Supreme Court in 1995-1996.

He then returned to the First Judicial Circuit and served there until he retired in 2012.

Last month, Recht was called to serve as a senior status judge on the First Judicial Circuit, filling the vacancy left by Judge James Mazzone, who become a federal magistrate judge.

Recht died Sunday. Funeral services will be at Temple Shalom, Bethany Pike, Wheeling.

The case that led to the Recht Decision began in 1975 when a Lincoln County parent filed a class-action lawsuit alleging students there were not getting a “thorough and efficient” education as the West Virginia Constitution requires.

The case was dismissed in circuit court and appealed to the Supreme Court, which assigned Judge Recht to collect evidence. Testimony was presented over 17 months.

In 1982, Recht issued a decision setting education standards and ruling that many West Virginia schools did not meet those standards because of unequal funding.

Critics contended the standards were too high to be achievable.

The state Department of Education was charged with implementing the decision, and in the 1984 Pauley v. Bailey case the Supreme Court approved the Education Department’s Master Plan for Public Education.

The circuit court retained jurisdiction in the case to monitor progress until January 2003 when Judge Recht closed the case and relinquished jurisdiction.

In the intervening years the state school aid formula was modified to provide more equal funding and hundreds of millions of dollars was spent on new schools, facilities, curriculum, and standards.

Recht also was a central figure in the legal decisions that led to the closure of the Moundsville Penitentiary. 

Deadly riots in 1973 and 1979 prompted Recht to place the facility, which was in the circuit he served, under judicial control.

Despite efforts to improve conditions, another riot on New Year’s Day 1986 led the state Supreme Court to order the penitentiary’s closing.

“The living conditions were intolerable,” Recht told the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review in a 2007 look back at the penitentiary.

“There wasn’t one redeeming feature about the place. It turned your stomach.”





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