okay i just wanted to give an update on the family court judge search case and in case you haven't been following along that is the case where the west virginia family court judge actually stopped the hearing and traveled to the home of my client and was heading inside the house to locate items for the ex-wife and my client said you're not getting in my house without a search warrant she says oh yes i will that part was caught on video she forces them to stop recording what's happening and my clients threaten with the rest his girlfriend is threatened with arrest if they don't turn their uh their phone off that's recording what she's doing so that hits the internet judicial disciplinary charges come down against the judge ultimately the west virginia supreme court found that she had committed 13 different cannons or violated 13 different canons of judicial ethics that she had performed an unlawful search of my client's house and that in acting in that way she wasn't acting in a judicial capacity but rather in an executive capacity which is law enforcement capacity so why is that important well now we're in this the civil lawsuit in federal court basically a violation of the fourth amendment is the allegation and the issue is over money damages now similar to qualified immunity judges can assert what's even better for them judicial immunity which is a form of absolute immunity that's almost impossible to get beyond so that's why this case is important that's why it's interesting so when can you get around judicial immunity well basically you can do it in under two circumstances one is where a judge is acting in the absence of all jurisdiction so if a judge just during her lunch break goes and goes and just beats somebody up walking down the street has nothing to do with with her job as a judge or you know goes and goes and robs a bank or something like that even assuming you could prove under color of law um that potentially is something that has nothing really to do with her job as a judge there's no case pending before her the the individuals aren't litigants before her so it has nothing to do with a pending case for which she should get judicial immunity that's not the case we have here and that's not going to be most cases the other scenario is is where the judge is alleged to have done done something that is not judicial in nature so it could be administrative in nature such as something dealing with employee issues signing paychecks or it could be something executive in nature and that's what we have here she's she's she wasn't acting in a judicial capacity but rather in an executive capacity in a law enforcement capacity and that's what what searching searching a house is is that something that law enforcement does so we have a west virginia supreme court decision saying that she searched my client's house that that was unlawful and that that was not even a judicial act that's allowed under the west virginia constitution in her state authorities state law authority as a family court judge so we're at the point now to where we've completed discovery we're either headed to trial or we're going to lose on judicial immunity so the the federal court is going to have to make a decision here but we're at the summary judgment stage which means that the court's not just looking at the pleadings not just the the words in the lawsuit but also the actual testimony what the parties have already testified to during discovery so we've had depositions i got to take the deposition of the defendant judge and you can read it entirely in its entirety on the website at the civil rights lawyer dot com you can also read the memorandum that we just filed yesterday asking for summary judgment and i go all through the deposition testimony the evidence that we have of the record and why the court should completely rule the case in our favor without even taking the the issue to trial of whether the violation occurred and just have a jury trial on the issue of damages and i lay out why that is because judicial immunity can't apply where there's really no dispute that the defendant wasn't acting in a judicial capacity the state supreme court said that she didn't there's no dispute that she performed a search of the man's house the state supreme court found that she did there's no dispute that she didn't have a search warrant she admitted that you can see that on video and she didn't in fact have a search warrant there there is no dispute that there are no other exceptions to the default warrant requirement there was no voluntary consent to for her to search the house she admitted that my client did not consent the other witnesses present including the the her bailiff admitted that my client did not consent we know that there was no claim that there was some emergency in the house that allowed her to access the house so there can be no dispute that it was an unlawful search and since the supreme court said that she wasn't authorized to do that and didn't act in a judicial capacity i argue that there's no dispute about whether or not she should be denied qualified or rather judicial immunity so these are all interesting issues and these don't come up a lot and this is a question people always have is well when can a judge be held accountable we we all know about qualified immunity but what about judicial immunity there's not a whole lot of cases out there on it and this this is an interesting case which i think meets that specific rare fact pattern where a judge can be held accountable and the most shocking thing that you might find if you read the depositions if you read her deposition and you read how i lay it out in our memorandum is the surprising thing is that really she's been placed under oath four times now the first two times were during the disciplinary litigation were actually the first three times i believe but every time she testified in the initial times she had admitted that she was wrong that mistakes were made that she didn't have authorization to do this and she was apologetic and she even basically entered a plea agreement where she admitted to violating 13 different judicial cannons she she she cried and apologized and at that time it was still possible for her to get suspended that was still on the table so fast forward to when the disciplinary process is over she wasn't suspended she was given a written censure and find a thousand dollars so once that's once it's off the table that she could be suspended she testifies to something different later so she gets placed under oath when i take her deposition and now she didn't do anything wrong she didn't doesn't think she made any mistakes does she is she sorry for threatening my client with a rest no in fact she might even do it again she testified in fact even since she was disciplined she didn't go herself but she sent deputies to go do the same thing and it was a complete fiasco because she wasn't there to do it properly i mean just a total total complete defiance of the law i mean the the at every level she was told that she was wrong and she even admitted she was wrong when discipline was on the table but now she completely defies you know an actual case law about her she disagrees with everything the supreme court held in her decision she disagrees with the the law as per the west virginia supreme court as if that's an option for a a family court judge to just take their own position disagree with what the supreme court says is the law and i mean just blatantly admitting that she didn't do anything wrong and she might do it again even after she testified under oath that she did do something wrong and was very apologetic it is just bizarre but it points out that this is a case where judicial immunity must be deprived the other thing you might find interesting when you read the memorandum that i prepared is how the other family court judges sort of rallied the wagons around her ultimately unsuccessfully and one of the family court judges judge stotler actually wrote a public letter to the chief justice of the supreme court and members of the legislature demanding that the disciplinary prosecutor be fired i mean this was outrageous this was investigated by the the office of disciplinary council for lawyers who issued a 50-plus page report completely blowing the the allegations out of the water that the disciplinary prosecutors were unfair with with this judge just showed it all to be false all to be lies and so her response at her deposition was is well there's a conspiracy all these disciplinary authorities investigators they've all conspired against her and when asked for an explanation of what she disagrees with and in a 50-page report she just says the fact that they didn't take the the word of of a long-serving judge over anyone else that's the only explanation and so there is no explanation she's she's been told she's wrong she's been found she was wrong at every level every level and lost and now she wants to be granted judicial immunity well if she's granted judicial immunity in this case then i'm not sure when it will ever be denied so i'm looking forward to getting a ruling in this case and i i'm confident that it will it will it will be create good case law for the issue of judicial immunity and it's going to deter future similar misconduct by judges because family court that is a very ripe area where a lot of this is happening because clearly if you read what i've written in this thing i document this these family court judges some of them are out of control they think that the law doesn't apply to them they they they think the constitution doesn't apply to litigants in family court that they can do whatever they want and in the face of of discipline even they it really is is a dangerous situation and here this particular defendant is threatening to do it again so again you can check out the updated filings that includes all the deposition testimony to date and and some of the legal arguments at the website at the civil rights lawyer dot com and then i'll update you definitely when we get a ruling which i'm looking forward to reading about whether we're going to trial on this and and if so what what the issues are to be decided hopefully just damages um also still defendants in the case are the the law enforcement officer bailiff and law enforcement officer who arrived who actually ironically was a past longtime bailiff of the judge and their depositions were taken as well and they don't get to assert judicial immunity so they will argue the qualified immunity arguments for them that'll be for for a different video and then ultimately hopefully a jury trial um in the near future so thanks for watching check the website for updates the civil rights lawyer dot com [Music] you