The General Assembly is about to add four judges to the Court of Appeals of Virginia. This week the Senate majority leader released the names of four finalists. Two are Richmond Circuit Court judges. One is a lawyer for a state agency in Richmond. One is a district court judge in Portsmouth. None has a bench or an office west of Richmond.
That matters more now than it once did. Since 2022, the losing party in nearly every civil case, and every defendant convicted in circuit court, has had a right to appeal to this court. The Supreme Court of Virginia chooses which of those decisions it will review. For most Virginians, the Court of Appeals is the last court that will look at their case.
The court’s 2025 report to the General Assembly lists each judge’s home locality. One seat has changed hands since then. Northern Virginia has five judges. Hampton Roads has three. Henrico County has three, plus a fourth who is listed in both Henrico and Mecklenburg. The northern Shenandoah Valley has two. Charlottesville, Roanoke and Halifax County have one each. Southwest Virginia west of Roanoke has none. Martinsville, Danville, and Henry, Patrick and Pittsylvania counties have none.
If all four finalists are elected, the Richmond area will hold six or seven of 21 seats. Hampton Roads will hold four. The region from the New River Valley to Lee County will still hold none.
The law speaks to this. Section 17.1-400 of the Code of Virginia says, “The General Assembly shall consider regional diversity in making its elections.” When the legislature enlarged the court this year through House Bill 443, it left that sentence in place. The word is “shall,” and it applies to these four seats.
Regional diversity has a practical purpose. The court’s own report notes that the kinds of cases differ from region to region. Appeals from our circuits often turn on boundary lines, rights-of-way, the division of family land, timber and farm contracts, and small estates. Our lawyers and litigants work in courthouses hours from Richmond. A judge who has practiced or presided in those courtrooms brings that knowledge to every panel.
Qualified candidates from the west applied. As Dwayne Yancey reported in Cardinal News on Oct. 5, the Virginia State Bar rated two applicants from west of Roanoke as qualified or highly qualified: Circuit Judge Sage Johnson of Bristol and Lee County Commonwealth’s Attorney H. Fuller Cridlin. Yancey asked then whether the General Assembly would correct our region’s absence from the court. The finalist list answers that question for now: no. The Virginia Bar Association also highly recommended Michael Finney, a Roanoke lawyer. None of the three is a finalist.
I serve on the House Courts of Justice Committee. Judicial interviews are set for Dec. 4. I will ask how regional diversity was weighed in choosing the finalists. I will ask why the Richmond area, which already holds three or four seats, should receive three of the four new ones. And I will ask why no candidate from Southwest Virginia made the list.
The four finalists have records that deserve a fair hearing on the merits, and they will get one from me. My concern is with how the list was drawn. The statute tells the General Assembly to consider the whole commonwealth when it fills these seats. The vote is expected Jan. 19, so there is still time. At least one of these seats should go to a qualified judge or lawyer from Southwest Virginia.
Del. Wren Williams, R-Patrick County, represents the 47th House District and serves on the House Courts of Justice Committee.
