Former Berkeley County Magistrate Admonished Over Conduct

After a months-long investigation, the West Virginia Judicial Investigation Commission has handed down a formal admonishment to a former Berkeley County magistrate.

David DeHaven was elected Berkeley County magistrate in May 2024, then assumed the office that September after his predecessor resigned early. 

As part of a voluntary agreement with the state’s Judicial Disciplinary Council, DeHaven resigned from his role as magistrate in April and agreed never to seek judicial office again in West Virginia.

In the public admonishment released June 6, the commission raised overarching concerns over DeHaven’s professional conduct during those seven months in office.

In one incident last October, the commission alleges DeHaven misrepresented his girlfriend as an employee of the court and brought her into the Eastern Regional Jail while conducting arraignments. Berkeley County’s chief magistrate filed a complaint over the incident.

In their admonishment, the commission said this was the first reported instance of a magistrate taking “someone not associated with the court system into the jail.”

DeHaven “stated that he did not think about the security risk prior to taking his friend [into] the jail,” the admonishment reads.

In a separate November 2024 incident, the commission alleges DeHaven allowed a co-defendant in a child neglect case to make arguments before the court, despite not serving as counsel and multiple objections from the prosecution.

The defendant’s husband, who was seated in the court gallery, stood up during a hearing and “started to argue for a bond reduction on behalf of his wife.”

Despite multiple objections from the prosecution, the commission alleges DeHaven allowed the husband to argue before the court for more than 11 minutes, and later reduced the defendant’s bail, allowing her “to bond out of the regional jail.”

During the hearing, DeHaven “invited the husband to cross the bar and sit next to his wife at the counsel table,” the admonishment reads. Later, “a bailiff intervened about a security risk that had been caused by allowing the husband to cross the bar. At that point, [DeHaven] ordered the husband to leave the courtroom.”

In its admonishment, the commission said incidents like these reflect “disturbing trends” in DeHaven’s time in office.

Specifically, the commission cited concern over the former magistrate’s “lack of candor to his colleagues,” “competency to do the job” and “continued unwillingness to follow security procedures at the courthouse or the jail.”

“Left unchecked, the liability to the court system would have been great,” the commission wrote.

An email listed under the Facebook page for DeHaven’s 2024 magistrate campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment on this story.

View the admonishment here: