The following hearings were recently held in Pocahontas County Circuit Court before the Honorable Judge Patrick I. Via:
The Clerk is directed to pull 40 jurors for the upcoming trial in the case the State vs Michael Smith, Sr., 65, of Valley Bend. Smith was indicted on one count strangulation; one count, domestic battery; and one count domestic assault.
Defense counsel for Lew Means, asked that the defendant be able to attend a rehabilitation program to deal with medical and drug abuse issues. The Defendant spoke on his own behalf and withdrew his motion for reconsideration of sentence due to being eligible for parole in a few months. The court denied the motion for reconsideration of sentence. Means was sentenced in October 2025 to not less than one year nor more than 15 years in the custody of the West Virginia Department of Corrections. He was indicted by the August 2016 Grand Jury.
A hearing on revocation of probation was held in the case the State vs Eli Pritt, 25, of Marlinton, wherein the defendant spoke on his own behalf and asked to be restored to probation. The Court reimposed the previous sentence and will permit the defendant to serve the balance of his sentence on monitored home incarceration. Pritt was released to a Greenbrier County Home Confinement Officer to be transported to his residence in Greenbrier County.
