breaking news just out in the past couple of days in the case where I'm suing the West Virginia
family court judge if you've been following this which you probably have you know that a family
court judge in West Virginia searched my client's house brought law enforcement inside his house
to look for items of alleged marital property against the will of of my client from day one I
believe that that was a Fourth Amendment violation a lot of people disagreed with me the judge ended
up being prosecuted with disciplinary charges the West Virginia Supreme Court said that that
this was misconduct these were constitutional violations and issued a written censure of
the judge from the West Virginia Supreme Court so there was no doubt about that under state law but
she remained on the bench despite the punishments that she received we filed a section 1983 civil
lawsuit that wound its way all the way through up to like four days within trial and then the judge
having deprived her of judicial immunity the family court judge then went on interlocutory
appeal which means before trial because she has immunity or allegedly you're seeking immunity
and appeals to the fourth circuit it's it's at the fourth circuit right now and the institute
for justice has joined the case and it's been fully briefed we're waiting to hear whether or
not there's there's oral argument but she's still on the bench and I just found out here in the past
couple of days that the West Virginia legislature is apparently going to impeach her relax
and this is just a amazing news people keep asking like all right well you have a lawsuit
seeking money damages but where is the Justice here there's no criminal prosecution the judge
is still on the bench there's no suspension hasn't been removed well at the end of the day it is the
West Virginia legislature that has the authority to remove judges they've done it before in fact
five or six or seven years ago they impeached the entire West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals
nearly but apparently the legislature has decided to move forward with impeachment proceedings I'll
link the article in in the description but apparently they've adopted an impeachment
resolution to be introduced in the West Virginia House of delegates that's sort of just like with
the presidential impeachment if they impeach in the house of delegates then it goes to the West
Virginia Senate for a trial apparently what is being discussed behind the scenes though is that
the judge may be asked or may end up resigning short of that that happening one question I have
is if if she does not resign and it goes forward to an impeachment trial does that mean that you
would lose all of your your pension and all that sort of thing I don't know the answer to
that maybe perhaps we'll find out so this is again all sort of news to me but it it was really cool
to see that in this impeachment resolution as described by the news article they're actually
going looking at her responses to my questions during her deposition in the civil lawsuit I
think that's that's awesome because here's what happened was is the despite the fact that the West
Virginia Supreme Court said that this is egregious misconduct that this judge did and she deserves to
be punished for it during her deposition after she was put under oath she was basically saying
well she disagrees doesn't think she did anything wrong I have a problem with that and apparently a
lot of the West Virginia legislators had a problem with that how many of you would be interested in
actually looking at the the deposition transfer script in this case perhaps I'll post it so you
can actually read through it for instance some of the things that I asked her in the Supreme Court
opinion of which you were the respondent the issue came up about whether your conduct consisted of a
search or a view which is what she called it is that right correct okay in the Supreme Court in
their opinion held that regarding the threshold question of whether you search Mr Gibson's home or
whether you viewed it the court said we find that she searched it is that true the answer that's
true the Supreme Court found that you searched Mr Gibson's home right correct do you disagree that
you search Mr Gibson's home yes the Supreme Court rejected what they called your attempt to reframe
your conduct right I disagree with the word reframe they disagreed with my argument that it
was not a search the West Virginia Supreme Court further found that in so doing that you exercised
executive powers forbidden to you under the West Virginia Constitution is that true that is what
they found okay do you disagree with that yes okay so it's actually a really really fascinating
deposition and it's really part of history now I guess where it's going to make it into impeachment
proceedings and the case has gone uh has gone natural so it's uh really exciting news and
um I'll definitely do an update see what happens this is one of those ongoing cases because again
it's still at the fourth circuit so it's either going to go back to a jury trial on the issue
of money damages on in the section 1983 case or maybe maybe the judge wins at the fourth
circuit and they say no she should get judicial immunity in which case will appeal to the U.S
Supreme Court so as always thanks for watching and if you want to continue following this case
and other exciting cases involving unique civil rights issues please make sure to subscribe and
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post something new remember freedom is scary deal with it I'll see you next time foreign
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