Talk:Supreme Court of Virginia

Untitled
Removed prior comment made while not signed in. To clarify the reference to criminal law appeals was removed from the first paragraph, apparently out of confusion form the statutroy scheme that provided that ciminal appeals heard by the Court of Appeals are final in that Court. However, while this is true in principle, in practice almost one third of the criminal case heard in the Court of Appeals are appealed to the Supreme Court. While most are refused as lacking precedential value or a constitutional question, in recent years the Court has granted a larger number of these appeals. —Preceding unsigned comment added by VASupCtHist (talk • contribs)

Kentucky district
"in 1783 when his first cousin, Harry Innes, was appointed to the Kentucky district of the Virginia Supreme Court."

- Thomas Todd article

This quote from the Thomas Todd article implies that the Court had broader jurisdiction at least around the time of the American Revolution, but the article does not seem to cover the geographical influence or "districts".

"After the United States was formed, the entire states of West Virginia, Kentucky, Indiana and Illinois, and portions of Ohio were all later created from the territory encompassed earlier by the Colony of Virginia."

- Colony of Virginia article

Given that the lifetime of the court encompasses some major political changes, this change in scope should be noted somehow. --Marcinjeske (talk) 09:39, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Selected Cases section
I have added a section for cases heard by the Virginia Supreme Court that were at least important enough to get Wikipedia articles. It includes cases that the Va. Supreme Court heard but were later ruled on by the U.S. Supreme Court. Please add more cases as you find them. Also, if someone from the legal profession could annotate the list, it would be that much more useful. Listmeister (talk) 20:00, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

Living former Justices ineligible for recall
The article currently says former Justices Thomas and Kinser are not eligible for recall to service on the Court because they returned to practice. Why? Code § 51.1-309 prohibits any retired justice from appearing as counsel of record in any case in any Virginia court, unless appearing pro bono under certain conditions. Code § 17.1-706(B) requires any justice under the age of 70 to accept recall and serve. It doesn't look like there's any statute exempting retired justices who return to practice from being subject to recall, although the Canons of Judicial Conduct would still apply, particularly Canon 3(E)(1)(b) and (d)(ii), which require a judge to disqualify himself or herself from any case in which he or she is acting or has acted as a lawyer. (Canon 6(B) specifically exempts retired judges from Canon 4(G), which prohibits judges from practicing law.) Glanvil (talk) 04:10, 13 February 2016 (UTC)

Title of members of the court
The office for members of the Supreme Court of Virginia, as it is created in the Constitution of Virginia, is "justice." This is different from federal judges. The Constitution of the United States does not create their offices, it only directs Congress to create judges of the Supreme Court of the United States and allows it to create judges of inferior courts. When Congress created the office of judge of the Supreme Court, it created an office of Chief Justice and an office of Associate Justice. (This difference has another effect as well. The Chief Justice of the United States is a justice of the Supreme Court of the United States by virtue of being the Chief Justice. That is not true for the Supreme Court of Virginia. The Chief Justice is a separate office, one which only justices of the Supreme Court of Virginia are eligible to hold. When a Virginia Chief Justice resigns or retires or his or her term as Chief Justice expires, he or she does not cease to be a justice of the court the way the the Chief Justice of the United States ceases to be a member of the Supreme Court of the United States upon his or her retirement or resignation.) While it does not create the office for members of the court, even the Virginia statute most comparable to 28 U.S.C. § 1 refers to members as "justice" rather than "associate justice." So, while a common mistake (one reflected in Virginia's budget bills, see ) the court does not have associate justices Glanvil (talk) 18:47, 22 April 2016 (UTC)