CHARLESTON – A Kanawha County family court judge and a former Berkeley County magistrate have been formally admonished by the West Virginia Judicial Investigation Commission.
In a June 6 JIC ruling, Former Berkeley County Magistrate David DeHaven resigned last month and was replaced by Sandy Hamilton.
But the public admonishment says DeHaven allowed a co-defendant – a woman’s husband – to act as an attorney in a child neglect case and, in another case, allowed his girlfriend – someone who was not employed by the court as a magistrate assistant – to enter the Eastern Regional jail to conduct arraignments with him.
As a result of the investigation, DeHaven agreed to resign from his position as magistrate immediately and to never again seek judicial office in West Virginia.
DeHaven was elected last year and took the bench in September after the incumbent resigned before the end of the full term.
In the Kanawha County ruling, the JIC admonished Family Court Judge Robert M. Montgomery for failing to timely prepare orders in a divorce proceeding.
In November, David Sanford had filed the complaint saying Montgomery took 21 months after the final hearing to file the final order in the case.
Montgomery admitted “there are some reasons for a short delay ... but there is no excuse for the delay that occurred.”
“I acknowledge that I have gotten behind,” Montgomery also said in testimony. “This job is very rewarding but is also relentless when you get behind because the filings continue and if I get behind then it can feel overwhelming. As we do not have law clerks or court reporters then when you have to go back you have no transcripts to scan through but you have to listen to complete hours of hearings.
“I have been doing this job as a family court judge since 2002 and I know that the key is not to get behind. That is the crux of the issue of this case. I am sure at one point I told myself there was no recording, and only notes and one proposed order I could see, then I would work on another case without this issue and eventually this case was lost in the shuffle causing even more delay.
“This is completely unfair to the litigants. The bottom line is that even if no one ever sent a proposed order, I should have completed one on my own.”
Montgomery was admonished in 2013 for similar misconduct.
Montgomery was a Family Law Master in 2000-2001 and has served as a family court judge since 2002. He was elected to another eight-year term last year.
