BY MICHAEL L. OWENS AND DANIEL GILBERT
BRISTOL HERALD COURIER
WISE, Va. ? In the early morning hours of Nov. 11, 2009, Circuit Court Judge Joseph R. Carico ran off a road and into a tree while swerving to miss a deer, he told arriving sheriff?s deputies.
An ambulance whisked away sole passenger Jeremy W. Hubbard, the crash report notes, while a wrecker service hauled away Carico?s crumpled SUV.
Not gleaned from the crash report is Hubbard?s lengthy criminal history and the fact that Carico has presided over some of Hubbard?s cases.
A year before the crash, Carico sought to be removed from a drug case involving Hubbard because of a possible conflict of interest. By that time, Carico had already issued decisions in previous cases involving Hubbard.
Two weeks ago, Carico was mysteriously removed from the bench in a move that has left fellow judges of the 30th Circuit scrambling to cover the missing justice?s docket in Lee, Scott and Wise counties.
Carico could not be reached for comment Friday.
Hubbard did not return a message left with his mother.
The one group with the authority to suspend a judge is the state?s Judicial Inquiry and Review Commission, which is tasked by state code with investigating complaints of unethical conduct by judges and passing the findings on to the Virginia Supreme Court.
Among the possible ethics violations the commission looks into are judgements influenced by social relationships and when a judge fails to drop out of cases where his impartiality might be questioned.
The Bristol Herald Courier could not determine if the review commission is responsible for Carico?s departure from the bench.
Wise County Circuit Court Clerk Jack Kennedy said he does not know if the commission is involved.
?I have no official knowledge of anything of the sort,? Kennedy said. ?No one has notified me of anything.?
Wise County Circuit Judge John C. Kilgore announced in a June 10 county bar association meeting that he and Chief Circuit Judge Tammy S. McElyea will cover for Carico, said Wise prosecutor Ron Elkins.
Kilgore did not say why Carico had been removed.
?Nobody knows why he?s not there,? Elkins told the Herald Courier.
Few officials and county lawyers are willing to talk about Carico?s sudden departure. Even fewer people are willing to speak on the record.
McElyea would not comment for this story.
?Her policy is she does not grant interviews to any newspaper,? her secretary said.
Carico, 40, was elected in 1999 to the post of Wise County Commonwealth?s Attorney. By 2003, he was appointed as the chief deputy attorney general by former Virginia Attorney General Jerry W. Kilgore. In 2005, Carico was named to a Wise County General District judgeship.
Though the state?s judicial review commission can issue suspensions during an ongoing investigation, state code places the job of permanently removing a judge with the Supreme Court.
The commission?s secretive nature is partially to blame for the mystery surrounding Carico. Because investigations are conducted in complete secrecy, it is nearly impossible to determine whether or not the review commission is responsible.
By law, the commission?s findings become public only if it files a petition with the Supreme Court recommending the censure, removal or retirement of a judge.
Carico?s signature appears on a Feb. 26, 2008, court order scheduling a trial date for a shoplifting charge against Hubbard. Later that year, on Dec. 12, 2008, Carico recused himself from presiding over the shoplifting charge as well as a petty larceny charge against Hubbard.
?I have determined that a conflict exists which would necessitate my disqualification from these cases,? Carico wrote in a letter to Judge Kilgore. ?Therefore, I respectfully request that the matter be assigned to another judge.?
Yet months later, Carico?s signature appears on a March 20, 2009, order to continue the shoplifting case.
Court records show that another judge dropped the shoplifting charge and sentenced Hubbard to a 12-month suspended sentence for the larceny.
Carico also revoked the bond and issued an arrest warrant in 2007 for Hubbard in a grand larceny case. Judge McElyea sentenced him to a month in jail on a guilty plea in September 2007.
The first record linking the two men is an arrest warrant that Carico signed March 5, 2007, because Hubbard failed to pay the fines previously imposed by another judge in a drug distribution case.
[email protected] | (276) 791-0698
Originally Posted by centennialdawg
Bookmarks