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 1995

Richard Forlani Neely

Justice, Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia

Richard Forlani Neely was a Justice of the Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia, who joined the court in 1973. Opinions & record ↓ Sources ↓

Born: 1941 · age 85
Tenure: 1973–1995 · 22 yrs

Judicial service

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

Education

Dartmouth College
Yale University

Judicial Record

In our data, Neely authored 654 published opinions for the court (1973–1995), plus 156 dissents and 46 concurrences. Most cited: In re R.J.M. (1,211 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. 327 of these were attributed to Neely 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
1980	In re R.J.M.†	164 W. Va. 496	1,211
1981	Losh v. McKenzie	277 S.E.2d 606	349
1979	Pauley v. Kelly· Dissent†	255 S.E.2d 859	248
1986	Hayseeds, Inc. v. State Farm Fire & Cas.	352 S.E.2d 73	242
1983	Nelson v. West Virginia Public Employees Insurance Board· Concurrence†	300 S.E.2d 86	231
1987	State Ex Rel. W.Va. Department of Human Services v. Cheryl M.· Dissent†	356 S.E.2d 181	223
1979	Hinkle v. Black	262 S.E.2d 744	217
1992	Lieving v. Hadley	423 S.E.2d 600	215
1978	Mandolidis v. Elkins Industries, Inc.· Dissent†	161 W. Va. 695	211
1984	Committee on Legal Ethics of West Virginia State Bar v. Blair	327 S.E.2d 671	201
1984	Crump v. Beckley Newspapers, Inc.· Concurrence†	320 S.E.2d 70	201
1995	Burnside v. Burnside· Dissent†	460 S.E.2d 264	186
1975	Call v. McKenzie	220 S.E.2d 665	183
1984	Orr v. Crowder· Dissent†	315 S.E.2d 593	177
1991	Garnes v. Fleming Landfill, Inc.	413 S.E.2d 897	145

Showing the 15 most-cited of 856 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 Richard Forlani Neely on?: Richard Forlani Neely 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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22 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).