How do judges of the Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia reach the bench?

The court's current selection method is nonpartisan election.

Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia / Joined 2005 / Former Justice

Brent D. Benjamin

Justice, Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia

Brent D. Benjamin was a Justice of the Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia, who joined the court in 2005. Opinions & record ↓ Sources ↓

Born: 1957 · age 69
Tenure: 2005 · 21 yrs

Judicial service

Year	Court	Appointed by	Vote
2005	Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia	–	–

Judicial Record

In our data, Benjamin authored 136 published opinions for the court (2005–2016), plus 56 dissents and 92 concurrences. Most cited: Melinda H. v. William R., II (1,681 citations).

Published, precedential opinions from the CourtListener corpus. Counts and rankings are objective and recomputable: how we count. We describe the record, not the judge. 224 of these were attributed to Benjamin by a unique court-, date-, and surname-match against our roster (marked ), because CourtListener recorded no author for them. Each links to the official text to verify. How we match.

Selected opinions

Year	Case	Citation	Cited
2013	Melinda H. v. William R., II†	230 W. Va. 731	1,681
2013	In Re: Timber M. & Reuben M.· Concurrence†	231 W. Va. 44	632
2015	In Re M.M., B.M., C.Z., and C.S†	236 W. Va. 108	422
2014	West Virginia Regional Jail & Correctional Facility Authority v. A.B.· Concurrence†	234 W. Va. 492	154
2005	Clifford K. v. Paul S.· Concurrence†	619 S.E.2d 138	128
2007	State v. Youngblood· Dissent†	650 S.E.2d 119	86
2007	In Re Cesar L.· Concurrence†	654 S.E.2d 373	79
2008	State v. Slater· Concurrence†	665 S.E.2d 674	63
2005	Louk v. Cormier· Concurrence†	622 S.E.2d 788	62
2009	Forshey v. Jackson· Concurrence†	671 S.E.2d 748	60
2010	Ullom v. Miller	705 S.E.2d 111	53
2010	Roth v. DeFeliceCare, Inc.· Dissent†	700 S.E.2d 183	49
2009	In Re Tax Assessment of Foster Foundation's Woodlands Retirement Community· Dissent†	672 S.E.2d 150	46
2013	State of West Virginia v. Timothy Ray Sutherland· Concurrence†	231 W. Va. 410	45
2005	Messer v. Huntington Anesthesia Group, Inc.	620 S.E.2d 144	44

Showing the 15 most-cited of 284 authored opinions in our data. “Cited” is inbound citations across the CourtListener corpus. Case links open the ruling’s full text (CourtListener) or its page here; read the methodology and verify against the primary source.

Questions & answers

How do judges of the Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia reach the bench?: The court's current selection method is nonpartisan election.
Which court was Brent D. Benjamin on?: Brent D. Benjamin was a Justice of the Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia.

Sources

Each fact on this page traces to a primary public record.

How we source & reconcile data → Data & Sources

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21 years on the Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia. Data as of 2026-03-31. Informational only; verify against the primary source before relying. Not a consumer report (FCRA).