Appearance alert: on Northwest Liberty News
Jim and I talked about voting out bad judges and an update in the Rucki case.
I was back on with James White on Northwest Liberty News.
Jim and I spoke about my update on the Rucki case, and we talked about voting out bad judges.
I have recently spotlighted two bad judges who will be on the ballot in November 2024: Kelvin Wells of Walton County, Florida, and Judge Steven Shaffer of Preston County, West Virginia.
Wells is a judge for whom due process is a nuisance. Here is part of an appeal overturning one of his decisions.
Meanwhile, Judge Steven Shaffer is a hanging judge with a penchant for judicial tyranny. I’ve already talked about Michael Bean’s case, where he terminated Bean’s parental rights with a paper-thin case. I also interviewed Nancy Layton, a grandmother being kept away from her granddaughter despite no findings of abuse, neglect, or dependency. She is being kept away in part because she has had the audacity to talk about her case.
I previously spoke with a woman who goes by Spanny Brat who said she has spoken with two hundred parents who have had their parental rights terminated by Judge Shaffer.
Jim and I talked about another case that Judge Shaffer presided over. This was a controversial criminal case.
He presided over the trial of Aaron Hoard, who was convicted of second-degree murder in the death of Grant Felton.
The problem is that the facts of the case don’t seem to support a second-degree murder conviction.
Hoard and Felton got into a confrontation in a Preston County bar in 2019. Hoard was kicked out.
Upon leaving, Hoard’s car was surrounded by Felton and his friends. Hoard loaded up his weapon, he got out, and he fired several shots in the air.
Then, Felton approached him either to lunge at or to subdue. Hoard then shot at Felton and killed him. I received the video outside the bar, which is below. The first three minutes little happens.
The video, due to the nature of what is shown is only available on YouTube. Find it here if it doesn’t show up above. (There is no sound)
Shaffer presided over the trial and the West Virginia Supreme Court has already found he did wrong.
Immediately after the parties rested, late in the day on Friday afternoon, May 14, 2021, the circuit court excused the jury for the day and began discussion of jury instructions. There were numerous jury instructions tendered by both parties. The State objected to several of Hoard's proposed jury instructions and Hoard objected to the State's proposed jury instruction on heat of passion, arguing this case did not involve heat of passion. Hoard tendered numerous instructions to the circuit court on the issue of self-defense. Ultimately, the circuit court gave a slightly modified version of Hoard's proposed instruction 31. Over the intervening weekend, Hoard's counsel sent an email to the circuit court that raised that the instruction on malice was being given twice to the jury – once during the instruction for first-degree murder and once during the instruction for second-degree murder. That email is not in the record and no specific objection was lodged on the record to the circuit court for reading the malice instruction twice. Once the entire body of instructions was compiled, Hoard only interjected a general objection to the circuit court not giving all of his offered instructions:
Not only did the West Virginia Supreme Court find that Judge Shaffer improperly instructed the jury, but Judge Shaffer also allowed the prosecution to tell the jury of Hoard’s silence, in violation of his fifth amendment right to be silent.
The West Virginia Supreme Court called these harmless errors. They acknowledged the judge screwed up while claiming that despite these errors there was still enough evidence to convict.
I received a lot of push back from friends and supporters of Grant Felton upon releasing the video. Here are a few of the comments.
This case received wall to wall coverage: here are just a few of the examples.
I’m sensitive toward what happened, but I am trying to understand why with so much coverage they are this upset with what I am doing.
The video does not show anything close to second degree murder. Also, Aaron is not from Preston County; the defense attempted to move the trial to another county, citing a biased jury. Judge Shaffer denied it while sentencing him to the maximum of forty years.
There will be much more on this story.