CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Kanawha Magistrate Jack Pauley should be formally charged with violations of the Code of Judicial Conduct, a panel of judges has determined.
The magistrate is accused of a range of misdeeds, including approving a domestic violence petition with no knowledge of the facts of the case, leaving his post an hour early without informing anyone when a police officer needed to file an arrest warrant and taking over a case from another magistrate and letting a suspect go free.
Two suspects in the court system died after alleged inactions by Pauley, although their deaths are not mentioned specifically in the charges.
The West Virginia Judicial Investigation Commission says formal discipline is appropriate for Pauley, who has served as a magistrate in Kanawha County for 26 years. The commission determines probable cause, like a grand jury would. Judge Ronald Wilson of Hancock County signed the formal statement of charges.
Pauley most recently won re-election in 2016, running unopposed for the Kanawha Magistrate Court Division 4 seat. Ninety-nine write-in votes were cast against him.
His case would next be heard by the West Virginia Judicial Hearing Board.
Two complaints were filed against Pauley, one on Sept. 8, 2016, and the second on April 21, 2017.
Pauley actually faces three charges, though.
MORE: Read the charges against Magistrate Pauley.
The first charge resulted from what happened when Pauley was working the 4 p.m. to midnight shift on August 25, 2016.
That evening, Kanawha resident Brandie Martin went to file a domestic violence petition against Housein Keaton. She filled out the petition only partially and turned it in to Mary Frampton, Pauley’s assistant.
The petition she submitted didn’t include the full information necessary to establish the evidence of immediate present and danger of abuse, including any statement of facts.
Pauley relied on Frampton to make sure the petition was filled out fully. But, according to the charges against Pauley, “Ms. Frampton either did not read the petition or missed the omissions.
“Because he incorrectly trusted Ms. Frampton to properly review the petition, Respondent himself failed to read the document to determine if clear and convincing evidence existed but instead signed the document without reviewing it.”
In an order entered at 9:55 p.m., Pauley granted an emergency protective order.
Even that, Pauley didn’t fully fill out:
“Under the mandatory relief session, he did not list anyone for Mr. Keaton to refrain from abusing; and he failed to order that Mr. Keaton divest himself of firearms despite an indication in the petition that Mr. Keaton owned or possessed guns.”
It got worse as Pauley was asked to recount what happened to the Judicial Investigation Commission.
On Sept. 21, 2016, the commission requested a written response from Pauley, asking how he had found clear and convincing evidence without any statement of facts written in the petition. A week later, Pauley submitted a response that Martin had brought a written statement of facts with her when she came to to night court.
Then on March 6 of this year, Pauley gave a sworn statement to the counsel for the Judicial Investigation Commission. “Respondent said that contrary to his written response, he did not remember Martin of the events from that evening.”
More specifically, he couldn’t remember if Martin provided a written narrative or a described her story verbally. The latter would not be allowed under the rules of practice and procedure for domestic violence civil proceedings.
“Respondent eventually admitted that he did not author his written response to the JIC,” according to the the formal charges against Pauley. “Respondent asked Ms. Frampton to type a response based on what she could remember about the August 25, 2016, incident.
“Respondent reviewed and signed Ms. Frampton’s version of events thereby adopting them as if they were his own.”
The second charge resulted from the events late on August 25, 2016.
At 11 p.m., Pauley and Frampton left night court, an hour before their shift was supposed to end at midnight and in violation of an administrative order established a decade before that established the night court hours as 4 p.m. to midnight.
Pauley didn’t contact another magistrate to come in to cover for him.
Sometime after Pauley left but before midnight, Charleston Police Cpl. David Dalton brought a criminal complaint and an arrest warrant against Housein Keaton — the same guy who prompted a domestic violence petition in the earlier situation with Pauley — to night court to be reviewed, signed and issued.
“Unable to have the complaint signed and the warrant issued because no magistrate was on duty, Cpl. Dalton was forced to leave the paperwork in a box outside Magistrate Court to be reviewed the following morning.”
What happened next isn’t actually written in the formal complaint against Pauley: Keaton was shot and killed just after 2 a.m. Aug. 26 — hours after Dalton was seeking an arrest warrant.
As WCHS-TV reported: “Court documents indicated that Keaton was wanted for a domestic assault charge that was lodged against him Thursday evening by his ex-girlfriend. The criminal complaint said Keaton was armed when his chased down the woman and threatened to kill her. The charge was filed and dismissed Friday after he was found dead.”
The third charge stemmed from events that started July 27, 2016.
That day, suspect Joshua Miles was brought in on charges of violating a domestic violence protective order, obstructing an officer and battery on a police officer. The case was initially assigned to a different magistrate, Julie Yeager.
On Sept. 22, 2016, Miles entered a guilty plea to the domestic violence charge. Yeager assigned him to 6 months in jail but suspended the sentence and placed him on 12 months of unsupervised probation, including Day report and an assessment with Prestera behavioral health.
His probation was revoked on March 8 when Magistrate Yeager discovered at a hearing that Miles had failed a drug test and did not complete the Day Report program.
Magistrate Yeager on April 5 mailed out notices to appear to lawyers on both sides for Miles’ status hearing, which was set for April 24.
On April 6, an assistant prosecutor filed a motion to withdraw the state’s motion to revoke probation.
Then on April 12, Magistrate Yeager called in sick. An assistant prosecutor and assistant public defender asked to have Magistrate Yeager’s assistant, Lisa Good, bring Miles’ file into day court, where Pauley was on duty.
“Respondent listened to a very brief request by the State and Defendant’s attorney on the State’s motion. Respondent then granted the motion and signed a jail release order for Mr. Miles despite the fact that the case belonged to Magistrate Yeager.
“Respondent did not attempt to contact Magistrate Yeager about handling the motion in her absence.”
That violated one of the Administrative Rules for Magistrate Courts saying that no magistrate may conduct hearings or enter orders in a case assigned to another magistrate except upon consent of the magistrate to whom the case is assigned or upon order of a higher court.
There was also more to that story than what was written in the judicial complaint. Miles died in his South Central Regional Jail cell, an apparent suicide. He had not yet been released because a fax from Pauley failed to send.
On May 2, a judicial investigations commission investigator asked Pauley what happened. Pauley acknowledged knowing the case was not assigned to him even though he’d acquired it, heard it and ruled on it in short order.
“When asked by the JIC investigator why he agreed to hold the hearing and signed Mr. Miles release despite it not being his case, Respondent stated ‘I do it all the time. If I didn’t do it, we wouldn’t get anything done.'”
As of Friday afternoon, no hearing date had yet been set for the charges against Pauley.
Pauley was at work in day court on Friday.