Former Circuit Judge David Hummel Publicly Admonished By Judicial Investigation Commission
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Former Second Judicial Circuit Judge David Hummel, who resigned last week, also agreed to never again seek judicial office and accepted a public admonishment from the West Virginia Judicial Investigation Commission following several complaints against him.
Among the complaints against Hummel were:
— According to the commission, in a 2020 hearing in an abuse and neglect petition alleging that the natural father of two minor daughters abused them, Hummel accused the older daughter, age 7, of lying, which brought her to tears, and told the younger daughter, age 6, that she had implicated the mother in a “sinister” plot to falsify allegations against the father. This was done via in-camera interviews, despite video recordings of prior interviews with the children.
— Also according to the JIC, in 2019, in seeking to change the service provider for the Adult Drug Court in the circuit from the Day Report Center to a local private mental health facility, Hummel went to the Marshall, Wetzel and Tyler county commissions seeking $30,000 from each to fund a case coordinator and take care of other expenses. Half of that money was maintained by the mental health provider. Hummel asked and received the rest back and “improperly placed it with a general receiver,” according to the JIC.
— Hummel, again according to the JIC, violated an administrative order regarding firearms in the courtroom. The 2013 order directed that all circuit court judges, family court judges, Supreme Court Justices and senior status judges that carried a firearm in a courtroom “take reasonable measures to ensure that any firearm he or she may possess on the aforesaid premises is concealed such that the same is not displayed.” During a 2022 hearing in a civil case, Hummel took out the gun he was carrying and displayed it for all to see.
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