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Teresa M. Chafin
2019 - Present
2031
6
Teresa M. Chafin is a judge of the Supreme Court of Virginia. She assumed office on September 1, 2019. Her current term ends on August 31, 2031.
Chafin was elected to the Virginia Supreme Court by the Virginia General Assembly to succeed Elizabeth McClanahan on February 14, 2019. [1] To learn more about this appointment, click here.
In 2020, Ballotpedia published Ballotpedia Courts: State Partisanship, a study examining the partisan affiliation of all state supreme court justices in the country. As part of this study, we assigned each justice a Confidence Score describing our confidence in the degree of partisanship exhibited by the justices' past partisan behavior, before they joined the court.[2] Chafin received a confidence score of Mild Republican.[3] Click here to read more about this study.
Biography
Chafin received her J.D. from the University of Richmond School of Law in 1987.[4] She was a judge on the Tazewell County Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court from 2002 to 2005, and a judge on the Virginia 29th Judicial Circuit from 2005 to 2012. She joined the Virginia Court of Appeals in 2012, and served there until she moved to the Virginia Supreme Court in 2019.[5]
Appointments
2019
Virginia Supreme Court Justice Elizabeth McClanahan retired on September 1, 2019.[6] Under Virginia law, the Virginia General Assembly selected the justices of the supreme court. The Republican-controlled Virginia General Assembly chose Teresa M. Chafin as a successor. At the time of the appointment, Republicans held a 21-19 majority in the Senate and a 51-49 majority in the House.[7][1]
Analysis
Ballotpedia Courts: State Partisanship (2020)
Last updated: June 15, 2020
In 2020, Ballotpedia published Ballotpedia Courts: State Partisanship, a study examining the partisan affiliation of all state supreme court justices in the country as of June 15, 2020.
The study presented Confidence Scores that represented our confidence in each justice's degree of partisan affiliation. This was not a measure of where a justice fell on an ideological spectrum, but rather a measure of how much confidence we had that a justice was or had been affiliated with a political party. The scores were based on seven factors, including but not limited to party registration.[8]
The five resulting categories of Confidence Scores were:
- Strong Democrat
- Mild Democrat
- Indeterminate[9]
- Mild Republican
- Strong Republican
This justice's Confidence Score, as well as the factors contributing to that score, is presented below. The information below was current as of June 2020.
Teresa
Chafin
Virginia
- Partisan Confidence Score:
Mild Republican - Judicial Selection Method:
Direct legislative appointment - Key Factors:
- Appointed by a Republican legislature
- Endorsed by Republican-affiliated individuals or organizations
Partisan Profile
Details:
Chafin was appointed to the Virginia Supreme Court in 2019 by a Republican controlled legislature. She received endorsements from Republicans in the state legislature.
State supreme court judicial selection in Virginia
- See also: Judicial selection in Virginia
The seven justices of the supreme court are elected by a majority vote of both chambers of the Virginia General Assembly.[10] Supreme court justices serve 12-year terms. At the end of their terms, judges must be re-selected by the legislature just as they initially were.[10]
Qualifications
To serve on the supreme court, a judge must be:
- a state resident; and
- a state bar member for at least five years.[11]
Chief justice
The chief justice of the court is selected by peer vote. The supreme court chief justice serves in that capacity for four years.[12]
Vacancies
When the General Assembly is in session, midterm vacancies are filled by the same legislative selection process normally used to select judges. When the assembly is not in session, the governor appoints a replacement to serve until 30 days after the start of the next session, by which point a judge must be elected to the seat.[13][14]
The map below highlights how vacancies are filled in state supreme courts across the country.
See also
External links
Footnotes
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 The Roanoke Times, "Judge Teresa Chafin, sister of Sen. Ben Chafin, elected to Virginia Supreme Court," February 15, 2019
- ↑ We calculated confidence scores by collecting several data points such as party registration, donations, and previous political campaigns.
- ↑ The five possible confidence scores were: Strong Democrat, Mild Democrat, Indeterminate, Mild Republican, and Strong Republican.
- ↑ Martindale, "Judge Profile: Teresa M. Chafin," accessed September 2, 2015
- ↑ The Virginia Lawyers Weekly Blog, "Chafin sworn in for Court of Appeals," archived June 26, 2012
- ↑ The Washington Post, "Virginia Supreme Court Justice McClanahan to retire," January 25, 2019
- ↑ Richmond Times-Dispatch, "Virginia Supreme Court Justice Elizabeth A. McClanahan announces Sept. 1 retirement," January 25, 2019
- ↑ The seven factors were party registration, donations made to partisan candidates, donations made to political parties, donations received from political parties or bodies with clear political affiliation, participation in political campaigns, the partisanship of the body responsible for appointing the justice, and state trifecta status when the justice joined the court.
- ↑ An Indeterminate score indicates that there is either not enough information about the justice’s partisan affiliations or that our research found conflicting partisan affiliations.
- ↑ 10.0 10.1 Commonwealth of Virginia Division of Legislatie Services, "A Legislator's Guide to the Judicial Selection Process," accessed April 16, 2025
- ↑ National Center for State Courts, "Methods of Judicial Selection," accessed August 18, 2021
- ↑ National Center for State Courts, "Methods of Judicial Selection," accessed August 18, 2021
- ↑ Commonwealth of Virginia Division of Legislative Services, Judicial Selection Overview, accessed April 16, 2025
- ↑ National Center for State Courts, "Methods of Judicial Selection," accessed August 18, 2021
Federal courts:
Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals • U.S. District Court: Eastern District of Virginia, Western District of Virginia • U.S. Bankruptcy Court: Eastern District of Virginia, Western District of Virginia
State courts:
Virginia Supreme Court • Virginia Court of Appeals • Virginia Circuit Courts • Virginia District Courts • Virginia Magistrates
State resources:
Courts in Virginia • Virginia judicial elections • Judicial selection in Virginia
