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 1973 / Served to 1975

James Marshall Sprouse

Justice, Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia

James Marshall Sprouse was a Justice of the Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia, who joined the court in 1973. Opinions & record ↓ Sources ↓

Lived: 1923–2004
Tenure: 1973–1975 · 2 yrs

Judicial service

Year	Court	Appointed by	Vote
1973	Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia	–	–

Education

Columbia University in the City of New York

Judicial Record

In our data, Sprouse authored 11 published opinions for the court (1973–1975), plus 11 dissents and 5 concurrences. Most cited: In re Willis (210 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. 27 of these were attributed to Sprouse 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
1973	In re Willis· Dissent†	157 W. Va. 225	210
1974	Carper v. Kanawha Banking & Trust Co.· Concurrence†	157 W. Va. 477	80
1973	State Ex Rel. Brotherton v. Blankenship· Dissent†	207 S.E.2d 421	72
1975	Evans v. Hutchinson· Dissent†	158 W. Va. 359	53
1974	Bell v. State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance· Dissent†	157 W. Va. 623	48
1974	Peoples Bank of Point Pleasant v. Pied Piper Retreat, Inc.†	209 S.E.2d 573	45
1975	Michigan National Bank v. Mattingly†	212 S.E.2d 754	34
1975	Kentucky Fried Chicken of Morgantown, Inc. v. Sellaro· Dissent†	158 W. Va. 708	30
1973	Posey v. State Workmen's Compensation Commissioner†	157 W. Va. 285	30
1973	State v. Cowan†	197 S.E.2d 641	30
1975	Farmers & Merchants Bank of Keyser v. Farmers & Merchants Bank of Keyser†	158 W. Va. 1012	29
1974	State ex rel. West Virginia Housing Development Fund v. Waterhouse· Dissent†	158 W. Va. 196	29
1973	Jones v. Laird Foundation, Inc.· Concurrence†	195 S.E.2d 821	25
1974	State Ex Rel. Casey v. Pauley· Concurrence†	210 S.E.2d 649	22
1974	State v. Mason†	205 S.E.2d 819	18

Showing the 15 most-cited of 27 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 James Marshall Sprouse on?: James Marshall Sprouse 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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2 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).