Judge: Guard D.C. deployment falls under governor’s authority

CHARLESTON – A Kanawha County judge has ruled more than 300 West Virginia National Guard members can continue their deployment in Washington, D.C.

Kanawha Circuit Judge Richard D. Lindsay issued his ruling November 10 after hearing arguments for the third time in the case. Gov. Patrick Morrisey had authorized the deployment in August as part of President Donald Trump’s efforts after he declared a crime emergency in the city.

Trump issued an executive order saying crime is out of control in the city despite reports showing it is actually at a 30-year low.

The initial deployment was scheduled to last until the end of November, but formal orders were signed last week extending it through the end of February.

Lindsay heard testimony Monday after hearing more November 3 and October 24.

In August, ACLU-West Virginia filed a complaint on behalf of the West Virginia Citizens Action Group against Gov. Patrick Morrisey, Major General James Seward, the Office of the Adjutant General and West Virginia Military Authority.

In the complaint, WV CAG said the deployment exceeds Morrisey’s constitutional and statutory authority.

“The governor’s authority to send in the National Guard was clear cut from the beginning,” Morrisey Press Secretary Drew Galang told The West Virginia Record. “This is yet another example of the ACLU wasting taxpayer dollars. Hopefully, they won’t bring such frivolous suits against the state in the future.”

The lawsuit said the deployment violated established legal boundaries.

“This action challenges an unprecedented and unlawful deployment of West Virginia National Guard forces beyond our state's borders — not to defend against invasion, not to respond to natural disaster, not to assist a sister state's emergency request — but to serve as political props in a manufactured crisis that Washington, D.C., officials neither requested nor support,” the complaint states. “Governor Patrick Morrisey has exceeded his constitutional and statutory authority by ordering West Virginia service members to abandon their families, jobs and communities to police the streets of our nation's capital, where violent crime has reached its lowest level in thirty years.

“West Virginia law is clear: The governor may deploy the National Guard outside our borders only for specific, enumerated purposes — none of which exist here.”

WV CAG sought to return the Guard members back to West Virginia through a declaratory judgment and injunctive relief.

Kanawha Circuit Court case number 25-C-1007