Searching Pocahontas County Criminal Dockets
No single portal covers every Pocahontas County criminal docket. Misdemeanors, early felony proceedings, and other public magistrate matters? Use the free Magistrate Case Record Search. For public circuit criminal cases, use WVPASS, which asks for free registration. Searching costs nothing; document downloads are sold by page.
A case ID or citation number is the best starting point. A party name works too, but common names pull up more than one person. The magistrate form demands at least one identifier. That means a Case ID, Citation Number, or Last or Company Name. You can narrow a broad docket search. Try filing dates, case type, party role, and court location.
- Decide whether the Pocahontas County criminal docket began in magistrate court or is a circuit case.
- Enter the exact case ID or citation number; if neither is known, use the full name and date filters.
- Match the court location, filing date, party role, and charge before opening a result.
- Read the latest setting, plea, disposition, and count-level result rather than one isolated entry.
- Contact the proper Pocahontas County clerk for documents, certification, or a missing public case.
The portals are only the first door. Anyone can call, fax, mail, or visit the right clerk instead. Magistrate clerk offices offer public terminals, and the docket search also runs fine from a library or a phone.
Pocahontas Criminal Docket Search Lanes
The court named on the case decides the route. West Virginia magistrates handle misdemeanors and issue process. They also set bail and hold preliminary examinations in felony cases. A felony can start there and later move to the Twenty-Ninth Judicial Circuit. Circuit court also takes assigned criminal matters and appeals from magistrate proceedings.
| Criminal docket | Public search | Document source |
|---|---|---|
| Magistrate misdemeanor or initial felony step | Magistrate Case Record Search | Pocahontas Magistrate Clerk |
| Circuit felony, eligible misdemeanor, or appeal | WVPASS | Pocahontas Circuit Clerk |
| Sealed or juvenile matter | Excluded from ordinary results | Only the route allowed by law or order |
That split is why a name shows up in one system and not the other. It also keeps you from reading a magistrate preliminary step as the whole circuit docket.
Inside a Pocahontas County Criminal Docket
A public magistrate result can include basic case data, related matters, charges, parties, bond entries, scheduled events, and a date-ordered list of docket records. The statewide sample shows the case ID, location, filing date, case type, charge text, plea, disposition date, event time and room, judicial officer, and a filed-by field. That sample illustrates the statewide interface. It is not a named Pocahontas County case.
| Case ID | The unique docket key. Preserve every dash and suffix, such as ##-M##X-#####. |
|---|---|
| Charge | The alleged offense and count. A charge is not a conviction. |
| Setting | Event type, date, time, room, location, judicial officer, and closure reason. |
| Plea and bond | The response to a charge and release terms, which may later change. |
| Disposition | The count-level outcome and date. |
| Docket records | Record number, filing date, compact code, description, and filer. |
Think of the docket as a procedural index. The complaint, order, or judgment itself carries the context a brief code cannot. Magistrate documents are not posted through the public case search.
Pocahontas Criminal Docket Codes
West Virginia pairs each compact magistrate code with a description. The official sample uses MMFCF for a misdemeanor complaint, MBOND for bond set, MMPGN for a guilty or no-contest plea, and MGMCT for a motion to continue. Treat these as statewide examples rather than a full local codebook.
- Continued or reset
- The event moved; the charge was not resolved by that entry.
- Preliminary examination
- A magistrate probable-cause step, not a trial or conviction.
- Nolle prosequi
- The prosecution declined or stopped a charge; check the actual entry for scope.
- Disposition
- The recorded outcome for a case or count.
Read any unfamiliar code beside its description, then confirm it with the Pocahontas County Magistrate Clerk. A code never replaces the signed order.
How a Criminal Case Moves
A Pocahontas County criminal docket grows as the court receives papers and holds events. A misdemeanor may never leave magistrate court. A suspected felony can open with a complaint and initial appearance. Next come a bond decision and preliminary examination before circuit proceedings begin. After that, the filings keep coming. Indictments, motions, plea entries, trial events, and sentencing orders land on the circuit docket.
Docket flow: Filing › Arraignment › Pretrial › Plea or Trial › Disposition › Sentencing
Not every case walks those steps in order. A dismissal can end one count. A continuance can push a hearing out. A plea may skip trial, and an appeal can add new entries. So read the Pocahontas County criminal docket through its latest entry and track each count.
Pocahontas Criminal Trial Notices
Under Magistrate Criminal Rule 11, a not-guilty plea brings a prompt trial setting. A party not in custody gets mailed notice. The rule requires it at least six weeks before trial. The notice names the essentials. It covers the date, place, time, and magistrate. Pretrial deadlines, motion procedures, and continuance limits appear too. The criminal-procedure rules spell out how West Virginia handles these settings.
For a Pocahontas County criminal docket, trust a mailed notice. Clerk confirmation also beats a stale entry. A county term date is just a calendar frame, never a personal trial date.
Courts That Hold Criminal Dockets
Pocahontas Magistrate Court is the local lower-court route. Magistrates Cynthia D. Broce-Kelley and Jennifer M. Dunz appear on the official county court map. The current map lists Magistrate Clerk Courtney R. Gainer. Her office sits at 900 Tenth Avenue, Marlinton. Call 304-799-6603 or fax 304-799-5430. An older official page names a different clerk, so call before you mail anything. The county map itself shows the current court and clerk routing details for Pocahontas County.
The routing split holds. The Magistrate Clerk keeps the lower-court criminal records. The listed magistrates decide those matters.
The Twenty-Ninth Judicial Circuit serves Pocahontas and Greenbrier Counties. Circuit Clerk Connie M. Carr keeps the Pocahontas County circuit files at the same courthouse. Reach her at 304-799-4604. Fax is 304-799-0833. The judges' chambers sit in Greenbrier County, but the local file counter stays in Marlinton. The official circuit page confirms the circuit and clerk details you need for routing felony file requests.
That circuit listing directs public-record requests to the Pocahontas County Circuit Clerk. It does not route them to judicial chambers in another county. The older magistrate contact page still matters, since it names a different clerk than the current county map does.
The official pages disagree on one point: who holds the clerk's job. So call first before mailing any Pocahontas County criminal docket request. And remember that the County Clerk is not the office to ask, since that office does not keep the state criminal docket.
Pocahontas Criminal Docket Filings
The 2025 judiciary annual report counts 44 Pocahontas County circuit criminal filings. That breaks down as 25 felonies, 1 magistrate appeal, 6 misdemeanors, and 12 other criminal filings. The figures are aggregate filings only, so they are neither a defendant list nor a count of convictions.
A clean county total for the magistrate criminal table is not available. Read nothing into that gap; no lower-court total should be inferred from it.
Sealed Dockets and Public Access
Trial Court Rule 10.04 opens the door. Court and circuit-clerk documents are public records unless an exception applies. Send requests to the office that holds the file. Plan to inspect or copy during usual business hours. Access still yields to a sealing order, juvenile confidentiality, or protected-data rules.
WVPASS leaves out sealed filings, non-public cases, and juvenile cases. E-file rules add another layer: full identity and account numbers must be redacted. It is fair to ask whether a public docket entry or a redacted order remains viewable, but do not try to obtain sealed content by email.
Key access rules:
Trial Court Rules 10.04 and 15A govern public file access and e-file privacy.
West Virginia Code § 49-5-103 generally keeps juvenile records from public inspection.
West Virginia Code § 29B-1-4 supplies a broad public-record rule, while court-specific limits still control.
Pocahontas Criminal Docket Copies
For a magistrate document, call or visit the Pocahontas County Magistrate Clerk. The public search lists documents but posts none of them. Photocopies run $0.25 per page under the administrative rules. Faxes cost $2 per page, subject to burden limits. Before mailing any funds, confirm postage, payment, and certification details.
Circuit records work differently. WVPASS public downloads cost $0.25 per page plus a nominal card fee. A purchased file stays in your history for 30 days, but it is not certified. Certified copies come only from the Circuit Clerk. A strong request names the court, the case number, a party, and the approximate year. It should also give the exact document, your delivery preference, and whether you need certification. The clerk's official contact page includes a contact form.
Phone first if the docket is old, missing online, or needed by mail. For a wider name search, see the Pocahontas County case lookup.