Search Fayette County Court Dockets

Searching the Fayette County Court Docket

Start with the court level, not just the name you type in. West Virginia runs two official search systems for the public. WVPASS handles public circuit and family case information plus public documents. MCRSearch covers magistrate cases. A city citation can stay with the municipal court that issued it. Probate and recorded county records live elsewhere. The Fayette County Clerk's document search is the right tool for those, not the Circuit Court docket itself.

1. Read the citation, notice, or prior filing for the court name and case number.
2. Use WVPASS for circuit or family matters and MCRSearch for magistrate matters.
3. Limit an MCRSearch query to Fayette and add a filing-date range when a name is common.
4. Open the matching CaseDetail record and compare parties, filing date, case type, and events.
5. Call the correct clerk when the result is missing, unclear, restricted, or needed as an official copy.

Keep your magistrate query tight. MCRSearch caps results at 30 records. A common last name can bury the match you need, and a case ID or citation number cuts straight to it. When a circuit or family file needs something more, the Circuit Clerk is the fallback office. For magistrate documents, call the Magistrate Clerk at 304-574-4279, since MCRSearch posts case information but not the filed papers.

Fayette County Docket Portal Split

No single search box reaches every Fayette County court docket. Each system covers its own jurisdiction. The office where a case was filed decides where a later copy comes from. WVPASS opened for public circuit access in 2025. It includes publicly available circuit documents going back to 1999. Registering and searching cost nothing. Public downloads run 25 cents per page plus card processing. Counsel of record can download without the page fee.

Two other systems serve insiders rather than the public. The Circuit and Family Courts E-File system, for registered users, exists for filing, and CourtPLUS is case management for approved court users. Neither replaces WVPASS for a public docket search.

Inside a Fayette County Court Docket

Think of a docket as the court's running log, not the whole case file. MCRSearch lays it out in layers. Basic Case Information may list the case ID. You might also see location, description, filing date, type, trial type, amount or claim, appearance date, and agency. The Case Event Schedule adds the next event. Its date, time, room, location, judge, and the reason it closed all appear there. Criminal details can go further, showing charges, citation data, plea, bond, disposition, and any transfer to Circuit Court.

Work through the entries in date order, but read the newest open event with the most care. A scheduled hearing is not proof it happened. One later continuation, closure reason, or order changes things. It can rewrite what an earlier entry seemed to say. For anything formal, ask the correct clerk for the filed document or a certified record.

Fayette County Search Fields

The magistrate portal offers the richest public search fields. No other Fayette County court docket tool matches them. After the CAPTCHA, pick a name-matching mode and enter at least one meaningful identifier. The form takes Case ID, Citation Number, and Last or Company Name. It also accepts First Name, Middle Name, party role, filing dates, case type, and court location. Filing dates follow the M/d/yyyy format. Setting the location to Fayette keeps a statewide query under the result cap.

Case types span Civil, Felony, Misdemeanor, Citation, Unlawful Detainer, Worthless Check, Animal Seizure, Detinue Action, and Foreign Judgment. Extradition or Fugitive from Justice is there too. Party roles split defendants and respondents from plaintiffs, prosecutors, and law enforcement officers. These filters earn their keep. Two people can share a name. They may sit in different courts, date ranges, roles, and case types.

Fayette County Courts and Dockets

Fayette County belongs to West Virginia's Fifteenth Judicial Circuit. Its Circuit Court serves as the general trial court of record, hearing felonies, major civil matters, appeals from lower courts, and other circuit work. Family Court falls under the Fourteenth Family Court Circuit. It handles divorce, custody, support, and related domestic proceedings. Four magistrates take lower-court criminal complaints, preliminary steps, citations, and civil matters within magistrate authority. Municipal court keep the local ordinance cases to themselves.

An appeal or transfer can split one matter into two trails. When MCRSearch shows a transfer-to-circuit code, the later Fayette County court docket lives in WVPASS. Treat related-case references as leads, not proof that two records are one file.

Fayette County Clerk Boundaries

The word "clerk" can steer a request to the wrong counter. Circuit and family files sit with the Circuit Clerk. Magistrate copies sit with the Magistrate Clerk at 100 Church Street, Suite 3. The separately elected Fayette County Clerk, Michelle Holly, serves the County Commission. The office keeps recorded documents, probate, estates, vital records, elections, and related county records.

The Circuit Clerk's own details are less settled. Fayette County's page names Deborah B. Hendrick at 304-574-4213. The state judiciary directory lists Travis W. Prince at 304-574-4249. Both are official listings. Treat the office as the stable destination. Confirm the current clerk and number before mailing a request or sending payment. The County Clerk page lays out its separate record categories and its document search.

Those categories make one thing plain. Deeds, probate, and county records have their own home, apart from the ordinary Circuit Court docket search.

How to Find Fayette County Court Dates

Want a hearing date? Look inside the case itself. Fayette County posts no free-standing calendar of court dates. MCRSearch puts each setting in its Case Event Schedule. Fields include Event Type, Date and Time, Room, Location, Judge, and Reason Closed. WVPASS serves the same role for circuit and family cases. Expect occasional loading and error screens while it works, so try again if a session stalls.

Match the newest event against anything earlier in the file, whether that is a mailed notice, a continuation, or a closure line. Fayette County docket entries carry labels like Pre-Trial Hearing, Bond Modification Hearing, Magistrate Jury Trial, Suppression Hearing, Notice of Hearing, Hearing Continued, Hearing Held, and Hearing or Event Closed. A continuation only means the date moved. The case is still alive.

One caution on counter hours. County offices generally open from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. on weekdays, yet hearings can sit outside that window. If an appearance rides on the date, confirm it with the court named in the case. The Fayette County court dates page walks through the full lookup and what to do after a missed setting.

Fayette County Docket Codes

Fayette County courts lean on short codes. The system logs so many events. That speed comes at a price: a label invites overreading. A transfer code may simply route a case from Magistrate Court up to Circuit Court. A bond entry records a bond action. It never decides the charge. Even a plea or disposition field speaks only to the one charge listed, while other charges or later events may sit in the same case.

MGTCC

Transfer to Circuit Court from a magistrate record.

MBTCC

Bond transferred to Circuit Court.

Continuance

An event moved to a later setting; it is not a dismissal.

Disposition

The recorded outcome of a charge, claim, or case stage.

CaseDetail

The MCRSearch view with basic data, events, and docket entries.

Read a code in context. The words around it, its date, and the entries that follow tell the real story. When a code could touch a deadline or a court appearance, ask the clerk or pull the filed order for confirmation.

Public Access to Fayette County Dockets

West Virginia law favors open inspection of court papers, within limits. Under Trial Court Rule 10.04, the public may inspect and request copies from the custodian during usual business hours, electronically when available, paying actual reproduction costs and honoring lawful exceptions. Rule 15A.26 governs public electronic access to e-filed material that is neither sealed nor confidential.

Some material stays off limits. Sealed, expunged, juvenile, protected family, confidential victim or witness, and personal-identifier content may be hidden or redacted. A docket search that returns nothing can simply reflect one of these rules, and an empty result is never a way around a court restriction.

Fayette County Records Since 1999

Online access to Fayette County court records has shifted fast. MCRSearch arrived in January 2024 as a free public magistrate information service. WVPASS followed in March 2025. It opened publicly available circuit documents dating back to 1999 to search and download. Then came a CourtOne contract, announced in October 2025, meant to unify the lower-court platform. Whether that migration has finished is not yet clear.

In July 2026, the judiciary added statistics dashboards with near-real-time county and judge filters. The dashboards refresh near midnight and report activity levels. They are not a case-detail search. The layers stay distinct. WVPASS handles circuit and family access. MCRSearch covers magistrate information, E-File serves registered filers, municipal tools handle local matters, and the clerk provides official copies. The state judiciary directory identifies Fayette County's circuit, family, and magistrate courts.

The directory shows why each Fayette County case must go to its own court level and its own clerk.

Fayette County Docket Records Office

For a circuit or family docket, filed order, judgment, plain copy, or certified copy, the Circuit Clerk is the office to call. Put the court, the case number, the exact filing or date range, the copy type you want, and a return contact in your request. Ask for current payment instructions too. Fayette County publishes no single certified-copy price, turnaround schedule, email request route, drop box rule, or public-terminal policy. Those details must come from the office itself.

Two fee rules apply to clerk copies. Rule 12 sets a $2 per-page charge when you ask the clerk to fax material. West Virginia Code §59-1-11 builds a $1 per-page framework. It covers a clerk-made copy or transcript used outside the office or in another court. Sort out service, certification, and payment terms before you order. The Circuit Clerk page publishes the local contact block.

That contact beats a portal display whenever you need a certified Fayette County court docket.

Fayette County Courthouse Routes

Fayetteville's historic courthouse sits at 100 North Court Street. Circuit Judge Thomas Fast works from Suite 4. Judge W. E. Sam Fox II is listed at the Courthouse Annex, 100 Church Street. Family Court holds court at 213 North Court Street. The Magistrate Clerk keeps an office at 100 Church Street, Suite 3. The addresses scatter. So trust the court name and room on your notice over the bare word "courthouse." Fayette County's general line is 304-574-1200. The state directory lists Family Court at 304-574-3393 and the Magistrate Clerk at 304-574-4279. Call before you go when a file is old, restricted, or invisible online. Ask staff as well about entry screening. Parking, recording rules, accessible entry, and any public terminal are fair questions too. The county page identifies courthouse contacts and office hours.

The county block helps you plan a records-counter trip. A hearing time, though, must come from the case and the court itself.

Fayette County Court Docket Volume

Filing counts explain why filtering by court level matters so much. The 2025 judiciary report lists 229 Fayette circuit criminal filings and 409 circuit civil filings. Its magistrate tables show 2,553 criminal filings. They add 577 civil filings under the report's own categories. Remember what these numbers are. They are administrative filings, not people, convictions, or currently open cases.

Treat the 2010 figures with care. That report used a different reporting structure, so its totals of 823 circuit cases and 8,593 magistrate cases do not line up with today's counts. For current Fayette County court docket activity, rely on the dashboard. For a named case, use the docket portals.

Fayette County Courthouse History

Fayette County dates to 1831, with Fayetteville named county seat in 1837. Building a courthouse here was anything but smooth. An official West Virginia Lawyer history describes Civil War-era destruction of an early effort. A fire took a later courthouse in 1893. The courthouse standing today opened in 1902. It still looks the part of its era. Walk inside and the differences from a generic office pile up quickly. Rock-faced masonry and arches define the exterior. The oak interior, marble-mantel fireplaces, and carved chimney-corner faces carry the character inside. Local tradition ties those carved faces to truth and wisdom. Charm aside, docket business may not happen under that roof. A case can lead elsewhere. The annex, the Family Court building, the Magistrate Clerk, or a state portal are the alternatives.

Fayette County Court Dockets by City

Each city in Fayette County handles municipal access its own way. Oak Hill points citation questions to police and city service pages. Fayetteville posts its municipal dispute and payment terms outright. Ansted lists a court date plus citation instructions. Montgomery shows a recurring municipal court calendar entry but offers no public docket form. Mount Hope gives a payment and mail path. None of these payment tools substitutes for a full docket search.

The 2020 Census incorporated-place figures only set a navigation order here. They say nothing about court caseload. Before digging in, figure out whether your citation is a local ordinance case or a state-law magistrate matter.

Map and Directions to the Fayette County Courthouse

Circuit Court files are kept at the Fayette County Courthouse, 100 North Court Street, Fayetteville, a brick and rock-faced building completed in 1902. Magistrate Court and one circuit judge's chambers sit a block away at the courthouse annex, 100 Church Street; Family Court is listed separately at 213 North Court Street. Confirm the exact building and courtroom before traveling.

Normal county-office hours are 8:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m., Monday through Friday, but no official source publishes a security-screening policy, parking map, or public-terminal location for the courthouse, so call the Circuit Clerk before a visit.