7th District Senate candidate, incumbent Ron Stollings, D-Boone, said he has filed ethics complaints regarding a political ad by his opponent, former federal prosecutor Mike Stewart. The ad contains an image of West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals Justice Tim Armstead.
This is a developing story and may be updated.
7th District Senate candidate, incumbent Ron Stollings, D-Boone, said he has filed ethics complaints regarding a political ad by his opponent, former federal prosecutor Mike Stuart.
The ad contains an image of West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals Justice Tim Armstead.
Stollings said this is a violation of the state judicial conduct canons. He announced in a press conference Friday that he has filed complaints with the Supreme Court’s Judicial Investigation Commission, the Secretary of State and the State Bar’s Office of Disciplinary Board.
“A letter has been delivered to the West Virginia Supreme Court requesting that Justice Tim Armstead make a formal public statement that he does not publicly endorse Mike Stuart for State Senate, and publicly call on Stuart to take the ads down from all sources from TV to social media,” Stollings said. “We call on Mike Stuart to do the right thing and pull his ad and apologize to the voters for misleading them.”
Mike Stuart said there’s no problem with the ad and it’s perfectly legal.
“It’s a stock photo that goes back before he was even on the court, I believe. And it was on my social media for years,” Stuart said. ”It’s his 16 year career liberal record, that’s why he’s losing in the district. And so my ad is perfectly compliant. There’s no violations whatsoever. I encourage you to call the Secretary of State’s office.
West Virginia Public Broadcasting (WVPB) has reached out to the Secretary of State’s office and awaits a response.
Armstead responded to a request for comment in a text message to WVPB that reads as follows:
“I understand that you called regarding the Mike Stuart ad. The conduct of judges in West Virginia is governed by the Code of Judicial Conduct. Rule 4.1(A)(3) of the Code of Judicial Conduct requires that a judge not publicly endorse or oppose any candidate for public office. Therefore, I am not permitted to, and am not, publicly endorsing or opposing any candidate in the race. Because it could be viewed by some that the inclusion of my photograph in the ad is an endorsement, I have asked Mike Stuart to remove the photo or discontinue running the ad with the photo included.
Tim Armstead.”
The West Virginia Judicial Conduct Canon states, “A judge or judicial candidate shall take reasonable measures to ensure that other persons do not undertake, on behalf of the judge or judicial candidate, any activities prohibited under paragraph (A).”
In that paragraph, it states, “No Judge shall publicly endorse or oppose a candidate for any public office.”
As of July 1, West Virginia has a new level of courts between Family Court and Circuit Courts and the state Supreme Court of Appeals. The Intermediate Court of Appeals will take some of the Supreme Court’s load and also hear Family Court cases that weren’t always heard by the Circuit Court.
As of July 1, West Virginia has a new level of courts between Family Court and Circuit Courts and the state Supreme Court of Appeals. The Intermediate Court of Appeals will take some of the Supreme Court’s load and also hear Family Court cases that weren’t always heard by the Circuit Court.
The three judges on the court are Judge Thomas E. Scarr, Judge Daniel W. Greear and Judge Charles Lorensen.
News Director Eric Douglas spoke with one of the three judges on the panel, Judge Dan Greear, to find out more.
This interview has been lightly edited for clarity.
Douglas: What’s the elevator speech version of what the Intermediate Court of Appeals is for?
J. Alex Wilson
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Supreme Court of Appeals
Judge Dan Greear speaks at the Intermediate Court of Appeals of West Virginia Ribbon Cutting at West Virginia Judicial Tower. June 30, 2022.
Greear: It’s an intermediate level between our circuit courts, and our Supreme Court. Forty one other states have that. We’re the 42nd. In civil cases, at least, that’ll be an extra layer of review, to make sure that the laws are applied properly, that the procedures are followed and that critical cases and issues are heard correctly and ruled on correctly by the trial judges. The Supreme Court will obviously then be able to review our decisions. In some other areas of law, we’re interestingly replacing a level of review. For instance, in family law decisions, currently, appeals from Family Court go to Circuit Court, we will be replacing that level.
Under the current statutes, circuit courts have discretion to hear those appeals. In other words, a circuit judge can look at a petition for appeal, as it’s called, and say, “You know what, that’s just not significant enough, I’m going to deny that petition. And I’m not going to rule on that appeal on its merits. I’m just going to let the ruling stand.” We will issue, by statute, a decision on the merits on each of these.
Douglas: So you will automatically hear any appeal versus the circuit court.
Greear: That is exactly correct. The circuit courts obviously are trial courts, not specifically appellate courts at all. And our trial judges are tremendously worked with abuse and neglect cases, criminal cases, their docket and their caseloads continue to grow larger and larger. So we think taking at least this little piece of what they have to do off of their plate and letting us do it will help them out, at least in some measure, to enable them to focus on their trial court work that they do. Same thing with administrative appeals for administrative agencies with grievances or things, like with public employees and employment disputes. Now all those are coming to us instead of the circuit court.
Douglas: This is the first time West Virginia has an Intermediate Court of Appeals. Where did it come from?
Greear: The need depends on the legislators you talk to, I guess, but let me back up and give you the history. There was a 1974 constitutional amendment passed, that gave the legislature the authority to create this if they desired to do so. So this issue has been around since at least 1974. Obviously, it didn’t happen until 2021. It’s not my job as a judge to state policy reasons for that. But I think there was a desire to ensure that every dispute, not only got heard at the trial level, but had adequate opportunity to be reviewed on appeal. And even in some cases, a second review of that appeal. So I think the view of the legislators was that it was needed to ensure that justice was carried out. And also as I’ve mentioned to take some of the workload off both the circuit courts and the Supreme Court.
Douglas: In theory, the Supreme Court will see fewer cases, because they’ve been handled by the Intermediate Court.
Greear: In theory, any case decision we make could be appealed to the Supreme Court. But in practice, when you look at those other 41 states, the amount of cases that go through the Intermediate Court and then to their next level review, there’s a number of cases that are weeded out, so to speak, in this level. The amount that progressed to the next level are smaller and smaller.
Douglas: Do you have any estimate of how many cases you’ll see?
Greear: A ballpark range is probably 800 to 1000 cases a year, in total that we’ll be seeing. The Supreme Court in some years is heard as many as 1500 or 1600, or generally over 1000. So we’re going to probably be somewhat smaller in number of cases than the Supreme Court.
Douglas: You will see you will hear each of these cases as a panel.
Greear: That’s right. All of the decisions will be made by the three of us. And it’ll either be a unanimous three zero decision, or it’ll be a two to one majority. So we will vote on all the decisions that we make in every case.
Douglas: What are the types of cases you expect to hear?
Greear: Probably the cases that will gather the most attention, and you’ll hear most about in the media are lawsuits disputes between individuals, between companies, between corporations. And certainly, the types of cases that garner political discussion are often big verdicts against big companies.
Douglas: But you expect that the bulk of your cases will be the Family Court.
Greear: Yes, by numbers. And one other major area of case we hadn’t talked about was worker’s comp. In those kinds of appeals, we will replace the Office of Judges. When you look at numbers, the amount of workers comp appeals, family law appeals is probably going to be larger than the civil cases that we hear.
Douglas: I remember hearing just a couple of months ago, you’re going to have virtual or remote hearings?
Greear: We’re tremendously excited about it. We have five satellite courtrooms around the state, in Raleigh, Lewis, Grant, Morgan and Wetzel Counties. They will have closed circuit video, the three of us as judges will be in our Kanawha City courtroom, but somebody from Martinsburg, for example, instead of driving four and a half hours to Charleston, and may be spending the night, can drive a half hour to Morgan County and appear there by video. They will have a big screen and we’ll see them and they’ll see us. And we’ll interact exactly like they were there in person. We’re not requiring it, it’s totally there for their convenience to reduce their expense and make our court more accessible. And we think that’s going to be a tremendous addition to our court.
The State Election Commission, led by Secretary of State Natalie Tennant, has taken up objections to individual contributions for Supreme Court candidates seeking public campaign financing.
The commission reviewed 155 challenges to contributions to Justice Brent Benjamin’s campaign Wednesday. Those challenges all came from his campaign opponent Beth Walker.
Benjamin is attempting to obtain state public campaign financing for his 2016 re-election bid. The statute creating Public Campaign Financing requires that at least 500 contributions of $100 or less be gathered by candidates before they are eligible to receive the nearly $500,000 in additional funding from the State Election Commission.
2012 was the first year that candidate for the Supreme Court could apply for this public funding, but the only candidate to file, now Justice Allen Loughry, did not have any challenges to his contributions.
Secretary of State Natalie Tennant said because there is no precedent is important that the commission gets it right.
“This is very important. Public financing is so important for the state of WV,” Tennant said. “Here we have to opportunity again to elect a Supreme Court justice under the public financing system that we have. We already have a sitting justice who was elected using public financing. I personally think as a citizen of WV, as the Secretary of State, I have seen the benefit of public financing.”
The State Election Commission will meet again Thursday to discuss an additional 365 challenges to the Benjamin campaign’s contributions.
West Virginia’s highest court has rejected a bid by several drug firms to close the door on the state’s lawsuit.
The Charleston Gazette-Mail reports that the Supreme Court has denied the companies’ request for a “writ for prohibition.” The prescription drug wholesalers claimed a Boone County Circuit judge committed error when he blocked their attempts to dismiss the lawsuit.
The lawsuit filed in 2012 accuses the companies of shipped a large number of painkillers to “pill mill” pharmacies in the state. Lawyers for the drug companies say they can’t be held responsible for the state’s prescription drug problem.
Attorney General Patrick Morrisey’s office said the companies were trying to stall the case. He says that the case will now proceed to trial, which is scheduled to begin in October.
The West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals heard four cases during a visit to Marshall Tuesday.
The court’s appearance was its sixth at Marshall University in the past decade. Among the four cases heard by the state Supreme Court was one that questioned whether a municipal court in Mercer County can order a dog be euthanized. Justice Menis Ketchum II explained the case.
“The animal control officer went to the home where the dogs lived and was talking to the owner, one of the dogs broke loose from its train and bit the animal control officer on his hands,” Ketchum said. “The animal control officer then went down to municipal court and charged the owner of the dog with a dangerous animal.”
From there the municipal court ordered the dog euthanized. Estella Robinson is petitioning the Supreme Court, arguing that the dog should not be euthanized on the merits of that order. The Supreme Court hearing on Marshall’s campus is part of constitution week.
The state Supreme Court has upheld a judge’s approval of Monsanto Co.’s massive settlement with thousands of West Virginia residents.
In a 4-1 decision Friday, the court affirmed a January ruling approving the class-action settlement of a lawsuit alleging that the Nitro community was contaminated with dioxin from the former Monsanto chemical plant. The plaintiffs said Monsanto polluted their community by burning waste from production of the defoliant Agent Orange.
Under the $93 million settlement, thousands of Nitro-area residents will be eligible for medical monitoring and property cleanups.
The Charleston Gazette reports that the court’s majority said it found “no substantial question of law and no prejudicial error” in various appeals of the settlement order.