Tag: Law

Ex-West Virginia Justice Loses License to Practice Law

The West Virginia Supreme Court justice who resigned before his colleagues were impeached can no longer practice law in the state.

The Charleston Gazette-Mail reported Wednesday the state Supreme Court formally annulled Menis Ketchum’s license to practice law in an Oct. 4 order.

Ketchum pleaded guilty in August to one felony count of wire fraud related to his personal use of a state vehicle and gas fuel card. He’ll be sentenced in December.

The 75-year-old retired in July, which meant he wasn’t subject to impeachment proceedings.

The impeachment probe was sparked by questions involving more than $3 million in renovations to justices’ offices and expanded to accusations of corruption, incompetence and neglect of duty.

The timing of his resignation also means voters will choose his replacement, instead of the governor.

Overcrowded Jails Prompt W.Va. Governor to Declare State of Emergency

West Virginia Governor Jim Justice has declared a state of emergency over short-staffing at state jails. The executive order authorizes the secretary of Military Affairs and Public Safety to use the West Virginia National Guard to help staff juvenile and adult lockups until legislative and operational solutions can be developed and implemented.

One-Day Alcohol Permits & Elk Restoration in the House

In the House Tuesday, a bill to reintroduce elk to the state was passed and a bill allowing non-profit organizations a one-day permit to sell alcoholic beverages to fundraising events.

House Bill 2466 allows non-profit organizations the opportunity to purchase a one-day permit to sell wine, beer, or liquor produced at a licensed mini-distillery for a day event like a fundraiser. The permit would cost twenty-five dollars.

Delegate Tom Fast of Fayette County, opposed the bill, because he worried this kind of permit would allow drinking abuse and send the wrong message.

“I understand the intent,” Fast said, “but to just further advance the cause of alcohol, I’m not a prohibitionist, but to just further advance it in this fashion is actually a major step in the wrong direction. It’s just greasing the skids down the slippery slope all the more, and I urge rejection.”

Delegate Amy Summers of Taylor County supported the bill.

“I rise in support of this bill, not to encourage alcohol use, but to support a request from my community that has a lot of elimination dinners and different types of activities to raise funds in our small community for all kinds of projects,” Summers explained, “and they would just like to have one keg of beer there for people who choose to partake in that, so I encourage support.”

House Bill 2466 passed 82 to 15.

A bill that caused some debate on the House floor was a bill was House Bill 2515. This would reintroduce Elk to the state. The West Virginia Division of Natural Resources would be in charge of the reintroduction and restoration, and the Elk would be confined to counties in Southern West Virginia. For the next ten years, hunting wouldn’t be allowed until a population is established.

There were those who supported the bill.

“Friends, these elks, they’re a very timid animal,” Delegate Justin Marcum of Mingo County noted, “they don’t come down, they’re not going to come down and run into your car like you heard, they’re not like your deers, yeah there might be an accident here and there, but all in all, an elk is a timid animal. They like to hide, they like to be hid in the woods. So I want to clear up any issues there friends, this is a great bill that is going to just help the South. Let’s end, end the fight that we already, we already have a fight now down there trying to bring our jobs and employment back, and this is just another piece to the puzzle.”

“Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation has done studies; Southern West Virginia is the best location for this,” said Delegate Rupert Phillips of Logan County, “Virginia, Western Virginia already has a program. Eastern Kentucky has the program; has been very successful in both states. The state of Virginia has gave us a free holding pen that’s located in Logan County right now. Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation has gave us $70,000 to start the program up. In 2013, there were 63,000 permits at $10 apiece; just to apply for a permit; and by the way, non-refundable. Simple math; $630,000. They drew 900 permits, 810 state of Kentucky residents, 90 out of state. With all that being said, time the tourism, the hunting license, and the stamps and everything, brought a little bit over 2 million dollars to eastern Kentucky.”

And there were those who did not support the bill.

“I strongly urge rejection of this bill,” Delegate Tom Fast said, “I have heard from the Farm Bureau who opposes this bill. Deer are bad enough for our farmers, and they destroy crops, destroy hay fields. Elk would multiply that, maybe not immediately, but in time they would multiply that exponentially. You think a deer does damage to a fence, what do you think an elk will do to a fence? Also, I think it’s important to understand we have a problem with wild animals getting out on roads, and again, if you think a deer does damage to a car that may weigh, I don’t know 150 to 250 pounds, or 300 pounds, what about a thousand pound elk that gets on the highway. They don’t know boundaries.”

“An elk weighs between 600 and 750 pounds, fully grown. Now when you hit that with a car, you’re not just going to knock out a headlight, you’re going to do quite a bit of damage,” explained Delegate Roy Cooper of Summers County, “but even worse my friends, when you try to dodge that animal knowing how big it is, and you slam your car, or your little girl or boy slams their car into a tree to dodge that animal, you tell me whether that animal is worth $5,000 or not.”

House Bill 2515 passed 87 to 11.

Charleston's Big Question: Gun Laws or Home Rule?

A gun rights group has gone to court in an attempt to stop enforcement of Charleston’s gun ordinances.
 
     The West Virginia Citizens Defense League asked Kanawha Circuit Court on Tuesday to issue an injunction against the ordinances.
 

The group says Charleston isn’t complying with a new state law that removed the authority to regulate guns from cities participating in West Virginia’s home rule program.
 
     Charleston officials haven’t decided whether to opt out of the program or modify the city’s gun ordinances.
 
     The ordinances limit handgun purchases and prohibit handguns and other deadly weapons on public property.
 
     City Attorney Paul Ellis says the city will review the complaint and respond in court.

Kanawha family court judge faces battery charge

A Kanawha County Family Court judge is facing a battery charge following an incident at a Charleston hospital.
 
 Charleston police arrested 61-year-old Mark Snyder on Monday night. He’s accused of grabbing a nurse’s arm and trying to drag her down a hallway at Charleston Area Medical General Hospital.
 
     A criminal complaint says the nurse told police that Snyder was upset about the care of a patient he was visiting. The complaint says Snyder refused several requests to leave and was escorted out of the hospital by a security guard.
 
     Snyder was charged with battery on health care providers and emergency medical service personnel.
 
     Snyder did not immediately return a telephone message Tuesday afternoon

WVU law school promotes cultural ties with Mexico’s University of Guanajuato

West Virginia University’s College of Law hosted three visiting professors from the University of Guanajuato last week. “Mexico Week” at the law school featured lectures and panel discussions giving students an opportunity to better understand life south of the border.

Perhaps the longest standing relationship WVU has with a sister school abroad is with the University of Guanajuato. In continuing with that tradition, professors from the school in the small university town of Guanajuato came to share their world with students.

La Ley

Patricia Bengné is a professor of law at the University of Guanajuato who has made several trips to Morgantown over the years. She came to Morgantown to dispel cultural misconceptions, to impart a sense of the history of Mexico, and also to give students a sense of that country’s legal system.

“Mexico and the US, we do not follow the same legal system,” Bengné explained. “Mexico is under the civilian tradition, and the US has a common law system. The main difference in my opinion is that the legal system here in the US is based on the judge-made law.  I mean the judges can make the law. And in Mexico it is very different; we have to follow very rigid statutes—the legal rules, I mean, we call codigo. It’s a very rigid system where we have to find the solution to the problem in these books.”

Bengné explains that the origins of Mexico’s legal system are both ancient and classical, based on the Roman and French legal systems. She says the Mexican system shares more in common with other legal systems throughout the world than with the Common Law system in the U.S.—especially those law systems practiced in Latin America and most of continental Europe.

Bengné says efforts are underway in Mexico to change the legal system into one more flexible and efficient.

“I have been in Chile recently and in Chile it took ten years to transition from one system to another. So in Mexico I think it will take much more time than that. It’s not easy to do that—to change the mind and way of thinking of lawyers, police officers, magistrates, every person involved in the judicial branch? It’s not easy, believe me.”

But Bengné has seen some relatively rapid changes in Mexico. She was among four women in a class of fifty who graduated from the law school in Guanajuato in 1978.  

“Being a female lawyer in those years? Oh it was impossible in Mexico. When I went to practice law—because you need to practice in order to know what you’re doing—I was like an invisible woman. It was very, very difficult.”

But today, Bengné says 56 percent of the students graduating from the law school in Guanajuato are women, and today more than ever, women are taking up judicial roles.

“Let me tell you, in my home town in the state of Guanajuato we have a woman as the president of the court—tribunal local estatal, we say. She was the president of the state court in Guanajuato and she was my student. We are very proud of having that,” Bengné said.

El Gobierno

“We have been a democracy roughly for more than 20 years or so, so we’re still a baby democracy,” says Fernando Patrón, the Director of the Public Management Department of the Law, Politics, and Government Division at the university.

Patrón also spoke with students about changes and challenges Mexico faces. He talked about the return to power of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) which was the dominant political party in Mexico for most of the 20th century, during which time Mexico was run under an authoritative rule.

“My perspective is that there is no peril of regression to authoritarianism in Mexico whatsoever, considering, of course, what this party’s return to power means,” Patrón said. “I think that the political system is mature enough to hold democracy. Our main concern in Mexico is not with the political system, but with the rule of law, for instance, corruption, transparency, accountability, poverty, which are not minor problems. No they’re very serious, big problems. So in order to consolidate democracy, we really need to improve those aspects of our country, otherwise our democracy could be in peril.”

The culminating event of Mexico Week at the law school was a panel discussion which included topics such as engineering in Mexico, the role of indigenous people politically, as well as organized crime.

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