The Judicial Conference of the United States has authorized the appointment of a full-time United States Magistrate Judge for the Southern District of West Virginia at Huntington. The essential function of courts is to dispense justice. An important component of this function is the creation and maintenance of diversity in the court system. A community’s belief that a court dispenses justice is heightened when the court reflects the community’s racial, ethnic, and gender diversity.

The duties of the position are demanding and wide-ranging, including: (1) conduct of most preliminary proceedings in criminal cases; (2) trial and disposition of misdemeanor cases; (3) conduct of various pretrial matters and evidentiary proceedings on delegation from a district judge; and (4) trial and disposition of civil cases upon consent of the litigants. The basic authority of a United States magistrate judge is specified in 28 U.S.C. § 636.

To be qualified for appointment an applicant must

1. Be, and have been for at least five years, a member in good standing of the bar of the highest court of a state, the District of Columbia, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, the Territory of Guam, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, or the Virgin Islands of the United States, and have been engaged in the active practice of law for a period of at least five years;
2. Be competent to perform all the duties of the office; be of good moral character; be emotionally stable and mature; be committed to equal justice under the law; be in good health; be patient and courteous; and be capable of deliberation and decisiveness;
3. Be less than seventy years old; and
4. Not be related to a judge of the district court.

A merit selection panel composed of attorneys and other members of the community will review all applicants and recommend to the district judges in confidence the five persons it considers best qualified. The court will make the appointment following an FBI full-field investigation and an IRS tax check of the applicant selected by the court for appointment. The individual selected must comply with the financial disclosure requirements pursuant to the Ethics in Government Act of 1978, Pub. L. No. 95-521, 92 Stat. 1824 (1978) (codified at 5 U.S.C. app. §§ 101-111) as implemented by the Judicial Conference of the United States. An affirmative effort will be made to give due consideration to all qualified applicants without regard to race, color, age (40 and over), gender, religion, national origin, or disability. The current annual salary of the position is $223,836. The term of office is eight years.

Application materials are available by clicking here (fillable Word document). Applications must be submitted only by applicants personally and must be received by January 31, 2024. If submitted by U.S. Mail, applications must be marked "Confidential" and addressed to:

Rory L. Perry II, Clerk of Court
Robert C. Byrd United States Courthouse
300 Virginia Street East, Room 2400
Charleston, WV 25301

Applications may also be submitted electronically as a single PDF document by e-mailing to: rory_perry@wvsd.uscourts.gov.

All applications will be kept confidential, unless the applicant consents to disclosure, and all applications will be examined only by members of the merit selection panel and the judges of the district court. The panel's deliberations will remain confidential.