How to Search West Virginia Criminal Dockets
Search by court and stage first. Do not rely on name alone. The West Virginia Judiciary offers WVPASS for public Circuit Court records. It also offers the Magistrate Case Record Search, called MCR, for magistrate cases. No single search reaches every municipal, magistrate, Circuit, juvenile, and appellate record. A felony that moved between courts may have two case files. The clerk for each court keeps the full criminal docket and its documents.
For Circuit records, the online interface can be slow to load. Do not guess at its search fields, filters, or case-number controls. The MCR instructions describe searches by first name, last name, or case number. The live form is gated, though. If a result looks unclear, take the county and court from your notice. Check with the clerk directly. The statewide case-search steps explain the difference between an index entry and a full docket.
- In West Virginia, identify whether the matter is in Magistrate Court, Circuit Court, a municipal court, or an appellate court.
- For a public Circuit record, open WVPASS. Its public search covers Circuit records across the state within its stated scope.
- For a Magistrate case, use MCR by first name, last name, or case number. It returns up to 30 results, has no document images, and may be incomplete or inaccurate, so confirm an unclear result with the clerk.
- For an older, missing, municipal, or document-heavy West Virginia record, use the county directory to reach the right court contact and ask about a public terminal, inspection, or copy process.
- If the matter was appealed, look for the separate appellate docket. Ask the appropriate clerk for a specific order or certified record.
Where West Virginia Criminal Dockets Begin
West Virginia splits criminal work by court level. A Magistrate Court docket may hold a misdemeanor case or the first proceedings in a felony. A Circuit Court docket carries felony prosecutions and trials, plus any criminal matters the law assigns there. Municipal courts handle local ordinance offenses. An ordinance case is not a state criminal file. The same county does not make it one.
| Court | Criminal docket role | Where to check |
|---|---|---|
| Magistrate Court | Misdemeanors and felony preliminary proceedings | MCR for case information; local Magistrate Court Clerk for documents |
| Circuit Court | Felony prosecution and trial, plus assigned criminal matters and appeals | WVPASS for eligible public records; Circuit Clerk for the full file |
| Municipal Court | Local ordinance matters | The municipality named in the case or citation |
| Supreme Court of Appeals | Appellate cases assigned to the state’s highest court | Separate appellate docket and Clerk’s office |
State law gives Magistrate Courts authority over misdemeanors and felony preliminary proceedings. Circuit Courts are courts of general jurisdiction. See W. Va. Code §50-2-1 and §51-2-2. These rules tell you where a docket begins or continues in West Virginia. They do not mean one statewide portal holds every court's case history.
Note: A name-only result may point to a different court phase. Compare the county and case number before requesting a file.
What a Criminal Docket Shows
A West Virginia criminal docket is a dated record of case activity. It can help you follow a filing. It can also show a scheduled appearance, a motion, or a court order. What you can see depends on the court and the particular case. MCR's blank detail template shows the possible fields, though any one case may differ. The field labels here describe that schema. They are not a promise that every field appears or is filled in every public result.
| Case ID and location | The assigned identifier and court location may appear in MCR’s template. No complete statewide case-number grammar was verified, so use the number printed on the court notice. |
|---|---|
| Filing date and type | Potential basic fields include a filing date, case type, trial type, and agency. Their presence in the blank schema does not establish that each is displayed in every case. |
| Charges and bond | The blank MCR structure includes charge and bond sections. Read any charge as an allegation until the actual order or disposition establishes what happened. |
| Events and parties | A possible event schedule can include event type, date and time, room, location, judge, or reason closed. Party and related-case blocks may also appear. |
| Disposition or sentence | Non-monetary sentences and docket entries are potential schema sections. The actual judgment or order controls; a field name alone does not show an outcome. |
West Virginia has no statewide public code glossary for criminal docket entries. A field inventory can help you locate a record. Still, a short label or a blank block is not a legal finding.
West Virginia Criminal Dockets in WVPASS
WVPASS stands for West Virginia Public Access to State Court Proceedings. It covers public Circuit Court records from all 55 counties back to 1999. Searching is free. Document downloads cost $0.25 per page plus a small card-processing charge. Sealed and juvenile records are excluded. An empty result does not mean the case never existed, and it does not mean no local file is held.
The search interface does not always render. Its field names, filters, result cap, and case-number controls may not match what you expect. Do not assume it has a particular name field, county selector, or criminal-case dropdown.
West Virginia also runs CourtPLUS and WV E-File. The two handle Circuit and Family case management and authorized filing. That system is not the public search portal. A Circuit result may be absent, sealed, too old, or missing a document. Contact the Circuit Clerk. The clerk can explain copy routes and public-terminal access for eligible electronic records.
Stages on a Criminal Docket
A West Virginia criminal case can begin with a complaint or citation. In Magistrate Court, the docket may record an initial appearance, bond information, a preliminary hearing, a continuance, or a disposition. A felony preliminary hearing concerns probable cause only. It is not a trial on guilt. The felony may move to Circuit Court after bindover or indictment. That court then opens a separate prosecution record.
Docket flow: Charges filed › initial appearance or arraignment › preliminary proceeding where applicable › pretrial settings › plea or trial › disposition and sentencing.
Timing for a preliminary examination in West Virginia magistrate court is set by rule, not guesswork. West Virginia Rule 5.1 of the Magistrate Court Rules of Criminal Procedure generally requires the exam within 10 days of initial appearance. That window applies to a person in custody. For someone not in custody, the window is 20 days. Extensions are possible under the rule. These are limits on the examination itself. No online docket refreshes on a promised schedule. For the setting that counts, rely on the filed notice, a later order, or confirmation from the clerk. One caution belongs here. A new order can move a scheduled event. So confirm any close hearing date with the court office that controls the setting.
West Virginia Criminal Dockets After Bindover
A West Virginia felony often travels through two courts. It may appear first on a Magistrate Court docket for preliminary proceedings. After bindover or indictment, the prosecution moves to Circuit Court. The Circuit case gets its own number. The two entries are not duplicates. Each court records only the stage it handled. Search one level alone and you can miss part of the case path.
When comparing West Virginia records, line up four things. Match the court name, county, case number, and filing dates. A Magistrate result shows preliminary activity. The Circuit record may hold more. It can include the indictment, arraignment, motions, trial or plea, sentencing, and post-judgment entries. An appeal opens yet another docket of its own. Scheduled appellate matters appear on the Supreme Court of Appeals current docket. That page is not a complete search of every criminal case, though.
None of this turns a court docket into an arrest-history record. West Virginia court files describe court proceedings. They are not a full arrest or fingerprint history.
Which Court Holds Criminal Dockets
Start with the court, not the charge label. A West Virginia misdemeanor belongs in Magistrate Court unless it is a local ordinance case. A felony can begin with Magistrate preliminary activity and end in Circuit prosecution or trial. Circuit Courts also take assigned criminal matters and appeals. If an appeal has been filed, it carries a separate case number and record.
The county is the practical route to a complete file in West Virginia. Circuit Clerks keep Circuit criminal records. Magistrate Court Clerks keep the Magistrate records, though the split of duties varies by county. Municipal records stay with the local court. The Judiciary’s court directory lists local contacts. The West Virginia county directory helps you find the right office. Once there, ask about in-person review, a public terminal, or copies.
Paper, mail, email, and phone requests all work, but confirm each office’s method and timing. Copies cost money. Circuit Clerk paper copies cost $1 per page. The price comes from W. Va. Code §59-1-11(b)(2). Magistrate copies run $0.25 per page under Administrative Rule 11. Tell the office the court and the document you need. Give the case number if known. Also say whether you need certification.
Administrative records follow a different route. Send a specific FOIA request to the West Virginia office that keeps the record. The response is due as soon as practicable. It cannot come later than five days, excluding weekends and legal holidays. That is a response deadline, not a guaranteed completion date. Judicial case records follow their own access rules.
West Virginia Criminal Docket Filing Counts
The West Virginia Judiciary’s 2025 Annual Statistical Report records 11,022 Circuit criminal filings. The breakdown: 6,630 felonies, 124 Magistrate appeals, 597 misdemeanors, and 3,671 other criminal matters. Those are one year’s Circuit filings. They are not a count of every Magistrate matter. They say nothing about convictions, dismissals, or pending cases. Magistrate Courts report a far larger and separate misdemeanor volume of 103,433 cases in 2025. The tiers differ, and so do the reporting categories. Do not merge the figures as if each Magistrate case fed the Circuit total. That gap is why a West Virginia criminal search must begin by choosing the court level that matches the record being sought. Annual totals measure new filings only. They are not pending cases, final outcomes, or case durations.
Public Access and Sealed Criminal Dockets
West Virginia opens most court records to inspection, subject to legal limits and court orders. The public portal has tighter edges. WVPASS excludes sealed and juvenile records. An MCR result is metadata, not a document scan. Family Court file contents carry special confidentiality rules even where certain orders or indices stay public. Juvenile records are generally confidential, subject to statutory exceptions. Other filings may be sealed, redacted, or limited under court rules. No public search can tell you what a sealed file contains, so do not try to infer it.
Access rules:
W. Va. Code §51-4-2 generally opens court records for inspection, subject to an applicable limit.
W. Va. Code §49-5-101 and §49-5-103 set juvenile-record confidentiality rules and exceptions.
Trial Rules 10.03 and 15A govern restrictions, sealing, redaction, and public electronic access.
Reading West Virginia Criminal Docket Entries
West Virginia’s public material offers no complete glossary of criminal disposition codes. So read the words on the entry itself. An entry can be too short to explain the result. Pull the actual order then. The terms here describe procedural events, not fixed portal codes.
- Bindover
- Movement of a felony matter from preliminary Magistrate proceedings to the Circuit Court process after the required probable-cause step.
- Continuance
- A court-approved move of a scheduled proceeding to a later date. Check for the later setting or order.
- Disposition
- The recorded outcome or status of a case or charge. Its legal effect depends on the entered order and governing law.
- Docket entry
- A dated line about a filing, court action, hearing, or order. It is not always the underlying document.
A short docket line rarely tells the whole story. One odd abbreviation can mean different things in different West Virginia courts. A word like "dismissed" or "bond forfeiture" only matters in context. The docket entry itself is not the ruling. The same goes for a conviction, acquittal, or deferred disposition on a criminal docket. When the result stays unclear, ask the Circuit Clerk or Magistrate Court Clerk for the full event description. Request a copy of the order too.