WV judge searches man's house sans warrant, forced to retire

[texag]

Nice to see one little cog in the evil no fault divorce machine get a tiny bit of justice.

[TGS]

It would be nice to see her lose all she has worked for. See her retirement lost, lose her house. Have someone go through her house and decide what they want to take. But we know that will never happen. She will retire with a nice fat pension.

She's not going to have much left after the lawsuits. Right now every Saul Goodman admitted to West Virginia's bar is probably going down her docket history and contacting people from every case she presided over in order to create a lawsuit. There's already lawsuits filed that are public record. She's toast, she'll die a pauper.

My understanding is that 98% of all complaints against judges are dismissed with no action taken against the judge. I have no doubt that many of these complaints are filed by parties who are simply upset that they lost, and should be dismissed. Most judges I have appeared in front of tried to do the best job they could. However, there have been notable exceptions, and I have a hard time believing that all of that 98% should be dismissed. Furthermore, I have spoken with attorneys who would not file a complaint against a judge out of fear of what would happen the next time they appeared in that judge’s courtroom.

I'm just taking a SWAG here, but I'm guessing the 98% number more than anything comes from absolute immunity afforded to the judiciary. However, it would obviously only cover judicial acts....in this case here executing a search warrant (as opposed to authorized one) not being a judicial act, therefore the West Virginia Supreme Court found she had no claim to absolute immunity.

Over the past three years I've been assigned to a unit where I've investigated malfeasance by public officials. I'd be curious to see the case files to see why she isn't being charged criminally, as I imagine WV has a criminal malfeasance statute that would be applicable. From the outside looking in it certainly seems to cross the line from misfeasance to malfeasance, at least. Maybe a criminal case is already in the making and the respective prosecutor is still dotting his i's and crossing his t's. The world wonders.

[Stephanie B]

Furthermore, I have spoken with attorneys who would not file a complaint against a judge out of fear of what would happen the next time they appeared in that judge’s courtroom.

That is no shit. Judges are monarchs in their courtrooms. If you're going to attack one, you'd best succeed or not take cases in that court until they retire or are defeated.

[BillSWPA]

She's not going to have much left after the lawsuits. Right now every Saul Goodman admitted to West Virginia's bar is probably going down her docket history and contacting people from every case she presided over in order to create a lawsuit. There's already lawsuits filed that are public record. She's toast, she'll die a pauper.



I'm just taking a SWAG here, but I'm guessing the 98% number more than anything comes from absolute immunity afforded to the judiciary. However, it would obviously only cover judicial acts....in this case here executing a search warrant (as opposed to authorized one) not being a judicial act, therefore the West Virginia Supreme Court found she had no claim to absolute immunity.

Over the past three years I've been assigned to a unit where I've investigated malfeasance by public officials. I'd be curious to see the case files to see why she isn't being charged criminally, as I imagine WV has a criminal malfeasance statute that would be applicable. From the outside looking in it certainly seems to cross the line from misfeasance to malfeasance, at least. Maybe a criminal case is already in the making and the respective prosecutor is still dotting his i's and crossing his t's. The world wonders.

The 98% is for ethics complaints filed with state judicial conduct boards. I cannot recall the specific state where that number was reported, but cannot imagine it is much different in most states. With 98% of cases dismissed, and with attorneys realizing that when you take a shot at the king you better not miss, there are instances of judicial misconduct which go unreported.

Judges do have very strong but not totally absolute immunity from civil suits for their actions. They would likely be unable to do their jobs without this immunity.

There have been cases of successfully criminally prosecuted judges. One example in Pennsylvania from years ago was a judge in juvenile court who was sending a large number of juvenile offenders who had committed only minor offenses to a detention center which was run by a private company, and which paid the judge to impose excessive sentences to their facility.

We are fortunate that most judges do try to do their best, because it is really tough to address when they do not.