Kanawha Family Court Judge Jim Douglas
CHARLESTON – A recently elected state Intermediate Court of Appeals judge is asking the Judicial Investigation Commission to dismiss a public admonishment of him.
In his June 1 petition filed with the JIC, current Kanawha Family Court Judge Jim Douglas says the admonishment he received last year over an email criticizing the JIC was “unprecedented,” retaliatory and unsupported by the record.
Douglas, who was elected to the ICA in May, asks the JIC to “countermand and retract” the June 16, 2025, admonishment or to expunge it from his disciplinary record.
The admonishment found that Douglas violated three rules of the Code of Judicial Conduct when he circulated a November 7, 2024, email to family court judges and a small group of family‑law attorneys criticizing the ICA’s lack of family law experience.
Douglas argues the JIC used those rules “to punish (him) for speaking the truth to a limited professional group for a laudable purpose, and to simultaneously serve as a warning to other jurists who would endeavor to emulate” him. He says the admonishment forces him again to “place the family law qualifications and experience of the individual and collective judges” of the ICA at issue.
At the center of the dispute is Douglas’ November 7, 2024, supplemental order and cover email discussing the appeal, which he sent to fellow family court judges and a “limited local bar” that practices family law. The JIC concluded the email improperly commented on a matter still within the ICA’s 30‑day mandate period and “challenged the integrity” of the appellate court in a way that could undermine public confidence.
Douglas counters that concern of the rule is both content and audience, and he argues his email criticized only the appellate court’s qualifications, not the parties, issues or outcome. He says he went solely to an internal professional audience for educational purposes and notes it was not shared with the general public, media, civic groups or on social media and argues that ethics opinions from Connecticut, Colorado, West Virginia and other states treat such intra‑professional educational communications as “nonpublic.”
Douglas’ six-page petition also disputes the JIC’s finding that he commented on a pending or impending matter. He says the last action in the case was his own November 7, 2024, supplemental order – requested by the ICA on remand – followed only by issuance of the appellate mandate and the appellant’s later withdrawal of the appeal.
Given that sequence, Douglas writes, “nothing else happened after the respondent’s Supplemental Order in any appellate court,” making it impossible for his private email to affect the outcome or fairness of a proceeding.
Douglas further asserts “none of the elements” of the allegedly violated rules can be proven because there is no evidence his statements were false, distorted or exaggerated or that they damaged public confidence in the ICA.
“The JIC saying it is so in its conclusions or findings, is no substitute for proof,” Douglas writes in the filing.
Douglas leans heavily on recent outcomes in separate disciplinary cases against Kanawha Circuit Judge Maryclaire Akers and Third Circuit Judge Tim Sweeney, both of whom were investigated for public comments about pending matter.
In February, the JHB recommended Sweeney be admonished only because he had gone to the media to gain “additional political leverage,” noting that if he had relied solely on an administrative order, the allegedly violated rules of the Code of Judicial Conduct “would not be an issue.”
Both Sweeney and Judicial Disciplinary Counsel Teresa Tarr objected to the JHB recommendation of admonishment, and the case now is scheduled to be heard by the Supreme Court during the fall term.
In Akers’ case, Special Judicial Disciplinary Counsel Rachael Cipoletti moved to dismiss the charge altogether, concluding there was insufficient evidence that Akers’ public interview could reasonably be expected to affect the outcome or fairness of proceedings.
Douglas says his private email is “less … offensive” than Sweeney’s actions and Akers’ radio and television comments. Douglas argues that treating a family court judge more harshly shows “a double bias, as well as, a double standard.”
His petition renews Douglas’ motion to disqualify retired Circuit Judge Alan Moats, chair of the JIC, from any further involvement in his case. Douglas points to Moats’ footnoted views in the Sweeney and Akers matters as evidence that the chairperson holds circuit judges to a lesser standard on the rules than he does family court judges.
Douglas goes further, alleging Moats effectively coerced him into withdrawing a prior written objection to the admonishment in July 2025 by threatening that, if he did not, disciplinary counsel would file “increased and ‘new’ formal charges,” revive old complaints and bring up a six‑month suspension he received as a lawyer more than three decades ago.
Douglas cites an attached email chain in which Tarr relays that “they” have declined a proposal and notes the possibility of additional charges and use of “four warning letters” if Douglas did not withdraw his objection. He ultimately agreed to withdraw his objection on the condition the additional material not be used to launch a new case.
Throughout the petition, Douglas frames the controversy as a free speech dispute over judges’ ability to discuss appellate decisions candidly in educational settings. He invokes the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Republican Party of Minnesota v. White, which struck down restrictions on judicial candidates’ speech during elections, and asks rhetorically whether the First Amendment “only operate(s) on a part‑time basis.”
He also cites multiple judicial ethics advisory opinions and notes that judges and lawyers routinely critique new appellate decisions in CLE seminars, sometimes during the same 30‑day mandate period at issue in his case, without drawing JIC sanctions. Judicial candor in internal professional forums, he writes, is “not only permitted but often encouraged, particularly where it serves the function of improving jurisprudential standards.”
In addition to challenging that rule finding, Douglas contests a separate portion of the admonishment that faulted him for a “technical, inadvertent, unintentional and quickly corrected” violation of another rule regarding ex parte communications, arguing the issue alone “would probably not even have merited a warning.”
He asks the JIC either to retract the entire admonishment or to enter an expungement of its three constituent findings, saying there is “clear absence of any procedural proscription or bar” to such relief. If the commission does not grant the petition on the written record, Douglas requests a hearing, asserting that “justice so requires.”
Judicial Investigation Commission of West Virginia complaint number 235-2024
