State ex rel. Eric W. Lewis v. Kurt W. Hall and David E. Godwin

Summary

The Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia denied Eric W. Lewis’s petition for a writ of prohibition seeking to disqualify the trial judge and prevent the prosecutor from calling the circuit court clerk as a witness in a failure-to-appear prosecution. The court held that the issue concerning the clerk’s testimony was not preserved below and that there is no per se disqualification of a presiding judge when the clerk of court testifies for the prosecution.

Holdings

1. The petitioner was not entitled to a writ of prohibition on this issue because he did not raise the issue before the trial court, and the Supreme Court will not decide a nonjurisdictional question that the trial court did not decide in the first instance.
2. There is no per se disqualification of a presiding judge when the clerk of court is called to testify for the prosecution's case-in-chief.

Questions Presented

1. Whether the prosecutor should be prohibited from calling the circuit court clerk as a witness when that issue was not raised before the trial court.
2. Whether a presiding trial judge is disqualified merely because the court clerk will testify for the prosecution in a criminal trial.

Disposition

writ_denied