The Supreme Court of Virginia is the highest court in the Commonwealth of Virginia. It primarily hears direct appeals in civil cases from the trial-level city and county circuit courts, as well as the criminal law, family law and administrative law cases that are initially appealed to the Court of Appeals of Virginia. Established in 1779 as the Supreme Court of Appeals, the Supreme Court of Virginia is one of the oldest continuously active judicial bodies in the United States.
The Court of Appeals of Virginia, established January 1, 1985, is an intermediate appellate court of 17 judges that hears appeals from decisions of Virginia's circuit courts and the Virginia Workers' Compensation Commission. The Court sits in panels of at least three judges, and sometimes hears cases en banc. Appeals from the Court of Appeals go to the Supreme Court of Virginia.
The Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia is the state supreme court of the state of West Virginia, the highest of West Virginia's state courts. The court sits primarily at the West Virginia State Capitol in Charleston, although from 1873 to 1915, it was also required by state law to hold sessions in Charles Town in the state's Eastern Panhandle. The court also holds special sittings at various locations across the state.
Robert Francis McDonnell is an American politician, attorney, businessman, academic administrator, and former military officer who served as the 71st governor of Virginia from 2010 to 2014. He is a member of the Republican Party.
Peggy Ann Quince is a former justice of the Supreme Court of Florida, having previously served as chief justice from July 1, 2008, until June 30, 2010. Quince was the second African American and third woman to serve as chief justice. She had been a justice of the Court since 1999, and was the first African-American woman to sit on the state's highest Court and the third female Justice. From 1993 to 1997, she served as a judge on Florida's Second District Court of Appeal. On July 1, 2008, Quince assumed the office of Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Florida for two years, the first African-American woman to head any branch of Florida government.
Julia Smith Gibbons is a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit.
The University of Richmond School of Law is the law school of the University of Richmond, a private liberal arts college in Richmond, Virginia. Richmond Law is ranked 66th (tie) in the US by US News, among the top five value law schools by the National Jurist, and one of the Princeton Review's 167 Best Law Schools of 2018.
Cynthia Dinah Kinser is an American lawyer who served as the chief justice of the Supreme Court of Virginia. Kinser was elected by the Virginia General Assembly to her first 12-year term to the Virginia Supreme Court in 1998, after being appointed by Governor George Allen to fill a 1997 vacancy. Kinser was elected to a second 12-year term during the 2010 session of the General Assembly. She became Chief Justice of the Virginia Supreme Court on February 1, 2011. She is the first woman to hold the office of Chief Justice on the Court.
Walter Shepard Felton Jr. was the Chief Judge of the Court of Appeals of Virginia. He graduated from the University of Richmond in 1966 and the University of Richmond School of Law in 1969. Felton previously served as Deputy Attorney General of Virginia and law professor at the Marshall-Wythe School of Law.
Margaret Lee Workman is an American lawyer and a former justice of the Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia. Her 1988 election to the Supreme Court made her the first woman elected to statewide office in West Virginia and first female Justice on the Court.
The Government of West Virginia is modeled after the Government of the United States, with three branches: the executive, consisting of the Governor of West Virginia and the other elected constitutional officers; the legislative, consisting of the West Virginia Legislature which includes the Senate and the House of Delegates; and the judicial, consisting of the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals and lower courts.
Robin Jean Davis is an American jurist who served on the Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia. First elected to fill an unexpired term in 1996, Davis later won full twelve-year terms in 2000 and 2012. However, Davis retired before the end of her second full term in August 2018 after the West Virginia House Judiciary Committee named Davis in articles of impeachment during the Impeachment of the Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia.
William Cleveland Mims is an American jurist and former senior justice on the Supreme Court of Virginia. He is a former member of the Virginia General Assembly and Attorney General of Virginia. He is the second person in Virginia history to serve in these three offices. He presently is a lecturer and director of the pre-law program at Christopher Newport University.
Four justices of the seven-member North Carolina Supreme Court and four judges of the 15-member North Carolina Court of Appeals were elected by North Carolina voters on November 4, 2014, concurrently with other state elections. Terms for seats on each court are eight years.
Bostic v. Schaefer is a lawsuit filed in federal court in July 2013 that challenged Virginia's refusal to sanction same-sex marriages. The plaintiffs won in U.S. district court in February 2014, and the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld that ruling in July 2014. On August 20, 2014, the U.S. Supreme Court stayed enforcement of the Fourth Circuit's ruling pending the outcome of further litigation. State officials refused to defend the state's constitutional and statutory bans on same-sex marriage.
Janet Marie DiFiore is an American lawyer and judge who served as the Chief Judge of New York Court of Appeals from 2016 to 2022. DiFiore was born in Mount Vernon, New York, and graduated from Long Island University and St. John's University School of Law. As a practicing attorney, DiFiore worked in a law firm and in the Westchester District Attorney's Office. DiFiore then was elected a judge of the Westchester County Court, and was subsequently named a justice of the New York Supreme Court, serving in that post from 2003 to 2005. DiFiore left the bench to become district attorney of Westchester County, New York, in 2006; she stayed in that position nearly a decade, until Governor Andrew Cuomo nominated her to the New York Court of Appeals. Her nomination was confirmed by the New York State Senate. She started her term as the Chief Judge of the Court of Appeals in New York on January 21, 2016. She resigned on July 11, 2022, effective August 31, 2022, amid misconduct proceedings into her alleged attempt to influence a disciplinary hearing.
McDonnell v. United States, 579 U.S. 550 (2016), was a United States Supreme Court case concerning the appeal of former Virginia Governor Robert F. McDonnell's conviction for honest services fraud and Hobbs Act extortion. At issue on appeal was whether the definition of "official act" within the federal bribery statutes encompassed the actions for which McDonnell had been convicted and whether the jury had been properly instructed on this definition at trial.
Rhonda K. Wood is an American lawyer who has served as an associate justice of the Arkansas Supreme Court since 2015. She previously served as a judge on the Arkansas Court of Appeals from 2013 to 2014, and as a trial court judge for the Arkansas 20th Judicial Circuit from 2007 to 2012.
Glen Alton Huff is a Judge of the Virginia Court of Appeals.
