Powder Keg

A six-month suspension without pay of a circuit court judge has been ordered by the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals.

These judicial disciplinary proceedings against him were initiated after he was stopped for a traffic violation in July 2021 by an officer of the Moorefield Police Department, during and after which Respondent identified himself as a judge, contacted the officer’s supervisors, including the Chief of Police and the Mayor, and made coercive and retaliatory comments.

A difficult task

While JDC and Respondent both generally agree to the underlying facts summarized below, they have diametrically opposed interpretations of those facts. For our purposes, it is challenging that both parties have selectively cited the record to support their competing interpretations, such as seizing on the particular verbiage used in a sworn interview statement, versus what was sworn by affidavit, versus what was said in live testimony, and putting blinders on to the rest. As a result, JDC’s argument has not responded to Respondent’s arguments and citations to testimony and Respondent is equally unresponsive to JDC’s arguments and citations to testimony.

The stop

On July 11, 2021, Respondent visited an ice cream shop with his family and then left the shop alone, in his own vehicle. He returned to the shop because he believed he had forgotten his cell phone there but was unable to locate it. While driving home, he heard something drop and, assuming it to be the missing cell phone, picked it up and transferred it from his left to his right hand while his hands were on the wheel. Officer Deavonta Johnson observed Respondent with the phone in his hand on the steering wheel and initiated a traffic stop close to 7:30 p.m. Body cam footage shows that Officer Johnson approached the vehicle, and before Officer Johnson spoke, Respondent asked, “[w]hat’s the problem?” Officer Johnson greeted Respondent, “How you doing, sir, . . . the reason I’m stopping you is . . .” but was interrupted when Respondent said “I’m Judge Williams, and, I don’t . . . why are you stopping me?”

The opinion details the judge’s contacts with various officials and prior stops where he had invoked his judicial status.

Also

Chief Riggleman relayed to JDC that he did not work up the case but that Detective Reckart had handled an incident several years prior where Respondent had left Wal-Mart without paying for around three hundred dollars of merchandise and that his wife was with him at the time. Detective Reckart relayed similar information but noted several times that he could not remember clearly since it was so long ago. Detective Reckart stated that there was no investigation of the incident, he was just doing other normal investigations when Christine Crites, the asset protection associate at Wal-Mart, told him about the incident. Ms. Crites had reached out to Respondent, and he had returned to the store and paid for the merchandise.

The court found no misconduct in the Wal-Mart incident.

Nor was racial bias proven

there is no clear and convincing evidence that Respondent called Officer Johnson “boy” when speaking with him.

Sanction

Respondent likened himself to a powder keg that simply needed a bit of a spark to blow and observed that Officer Johnson happened to be on the receiving end of that. Respondent pleaded human circumstances but recognized that the issues he sought leave for in February 2020 had not resolved and had actually worsened in the aftermath of the brief closing of courts in response to Covid-19, adding a harrying caseload and serious adjustments to an already tenuous mental and emotional health situation.

Censure was also imposed.  (Mike Frisch)