John A. Hutchison (West Virginia)
2019 - Present
2024
5
John A. Hutchison is a judge of the Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia. He assumed office on January 4, 2019. His current term ends on December 31, 2024.
Hutchison ran for re-election for judge of the Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia. He won in the general election on June 9, 2020.
Hutchison was appointed to the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals in December 2018 by Governor Jim Justice (R). Hutchison was elected by his peers to succeed Evan Jenkins as chief justice of the court. His term as chief began on January 1, 2022, and ended on January 1, 2023.[1] To read more about judicial selection in West Virginia, click here.
In 2020, Ballotpedia published Ballotpedia Courts: State Partisanship, a study examining the partisan affiliation of all state supreme court justices in the country. As part of this study, we assigned each justice a Confidence Score describing our confidence in the degree of partisanship exhibited by the justices' past partisan behavior, before they joined the court.[2] Hutchinson received a confidence score of Mild Republican.[3] Click here to read more about this study.
Biography
Hutchison received his B.A. in history and political science from Davis & Elkins College in 1972. He graduated with his J.D. from the West Virginia University College of Law in 1980.[4] Hutchinson practiced law with Gorman, Sheatsley and Hutchison in Raleigh County, West Virginia for ten years.[4] He was a managing trial attorney for the Nationwide Insurance West Virginia Trial Division Office from 1991 to 1995, and a judge in West Virginia's Tenth Judicial Circuit from 1995 to 2018.[5][4] In 2018 he became a justice on the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals.
Elections
2024
John A. Hutchison did not file to run for re-election.
2020
See also: West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals elections, 2020
General election
General election for Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia
Incumbent John A. Hutchison defeated Lora Dyer and William Schwartz in the general election for Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia on June 9, 2020.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ |  | John A. Hutchison (Nonpartisan) | 39.2 | 141,176 |
 | Lora Dyer (Nonpartisan) | 35.6 | 128,106 | |
 | William Schwartz (Nonpartisan) | 25.2 | 90,829 | |
| Total votes: 360,111 | |||
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2016
West Virginia held general elections for county judicial offices on May 10, 2016. This date coincided with partisan primaries for statewide and federal offices. The 2016 election was the first nonpartisan election for the state's judicial seats since statehood in 1863. Learn more about this change here. Candidates interested in filing for the election submitted paperwork by January 30, 2016. Incumbent John Hutchison ran unopposed in the general election for the West Virginia Judicial Circuit 10, Division 1 seat.[6]
| West Virginia Judicial Circuit 10, Division 1 General Election, 2016 | ||
|---|---|---|
| Candidate | Vote % | Votes |
 John Hutchison Incumbent (unopposed) |
100.00% | 15,276 |
| Total Votes | 15,276 | |
| Source: West Virginia Secretary of State, "Election Results Center," accessed May 10, 2016 | ||
Analysis
Ballotpedia Courts: State Partisanship (2020)
Last updated: June 15, 2020
In 2020, Ballotpedia published Ballotpedia Courts: State Partisanship, a study examining the partisan affiliation of all state supreme court justices in the country as of June 15, 2020.
The study presented Confidence Scores that represented our confidence in each justice's degree of partisan affiliation. This was not a measure of where a justice fell on an ideological spectrum, but rather a measure of how much confidence we had that a justice was or had been affiliated with a political party. The scores were based on seven factors, including but not limited to party registration.[7]
The five resulting categories of Confidence Scores were:
- Strong Democrat
- Mild Democrat
- Indeterminate[8]
- Mild Republican
- Strong Republican
This justice's Confidence Score, as well as the factors contributing to that score, is presented below. The information below was current as of June 2020.
John
Hutchison
West Virginia
- Partisan Confidence Score:
Mild Republican - Judicial Selection Method:
Elected - Key Factors:
- Was a registered Democrat before 2020
- Donated less than $2,000 to Republican candidates
- Appointed by a Republican governor
Partisan Profile
Details:
Hutchinson was a registered Democrat prior to his appointment to the court. He was nominated to the court by Gov. Jim Justice (R) to fill a vacancy on the court. He donated $1,000 to Republican candidates and $100 to Democratic candidates. West Virginia was a Republican trifecta when he was appointed to the court.
State supreme court judicial selection in West Virginia
- See also: Judicial selection in West Virginia
The five justices of the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals are chosen in nonpartisan statewide elections to serve 12-year terms. They must run for re-election when their terms expire.[9]
Qualifications
To serve on the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals, a judge must be:
- a citizen of West Virginia for at least five years;
- at least 30 years old; and
- practiced in law for at least 10 years.[9]
Chief justice
The chief justice of the supreme court of appeals is selected by peer vote for a one-year term.[9]
Vacancies
In the event of a midterm vacancy, the governor appoints a replacement from a list of two to five qualified applicants submitted by a nominating commission.[10] The appointee serves until the next general election, at which point he or she may compete to fill the remainder of the unexpired term.[9]
The map below highlights how vacancies are filled in state supreme courts across the country.
See also
Footnotes
- ↑ WV News, "Justice John Hutchison to be West Virginia Supreme Court chief justice in 2022," December 2, 2021
- ↑ We calculated confidence scores by collecting several data points such as party registration, donations, and previous political campaigns.
- ↑ The five possible confidence scores were: Strong Democrat, Mild Democrat, Indeterminate, Mild Republican, and Strong Republican.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 West Virginia Judiciary, "Circuit Court Judges: Judge John A. Hutchison," accessed December 13, 2018
- ↑ West Virginia Judiciary, "Tenth Judicial Circuit Judges and Court Information," archived May 20, 2015
- ↑ Cite error: Invalid
<ref>tag; no text was provided for refs namedwv - ↑ The seven factors were party registration, donations made to partisan candidates, donations made to political parties, donations received from political parties or bodies with clear political affiliation, participation in political campaigns, the partisanship of the body responsible for appointing the justice, and state trifecta status when the justice joined the court.
- ↑ An Indeterminate score indicates that there is either not enough information about the justice’s partisan affiliations or that our research found conflicting partisan affiliations.
- ↑ 9.0 9.1 9.2 9.3 National Center for State Courts, "Selection of Judges," accessed August 13, 2021
- ↑ American Judicature Society, "Methods of Judicial Selection: West Virginia; Judicial Nominating Commissions," archived January 13, 2012
Federal courts:
Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals • U.S. District Court: Northern District of West Virginia, Southern District of West Virginia • U.S. Bankruptcy Court: Northern District of West Virginia, Southern District of West Virginia
State courts:
Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia • West Virginia Intermediate Court of Appeals • West Virginia Circuit Courts • West Virginia Family Courts • West Virginia Magistrate Courts
State resources:
Courts in West Virginia • West Virginia judicial elections • Judicial selection in West Virginia
