Tuesday, January 23, 2007

House approves Chad Dotson for general district court judgeship

As Not Larry Sabato reported earlier, the House approved HR 53 , which includes Chad Dotson among those appointed or reappointed for general district court judgeships. Well done, Chad. On Chad's selection, Ken Lammers has commentary here, and says Ron Elkins as Chief Deputy may be the next Commonwealth's attorney. Well done, Ron - another good guy.

At the same time, the House voted in Joe Carico to the 30th Circuit, in approving HR 52. The Senate approved the same list of circuit court appointees and re-appointees, in SB 43. I don't know Judge Carico as well as I know these other guys.

Also, the Senate Finance committee has approved SB 1175, which would add a juvenile and domestic relations district court judge for the Abingdon-Marion-Bristol district, among other things, as well as SB 1174, which will add circuit court judgeships in circuits including here in Southwest Virginia the 27th (Galax, Radford, Bland, Carroll, Floyd, Giles, Grayson, Montgomery, Pulaski, Wythe) and 30th (Norton, Lee, Scott, Wise).

I saw Judge Birg Sergent at the VBA winter meeting, and asked whether decision by the General Assembly to add a judgeship to the 30th circuit on the eve of his retirement means that the legislators have determined that it will take two judgeships to replace him. The facts cannot be read any other way.

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