West Virginia Court Candidate Loses Campaign Ethics Rule Suit

A West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals candidate lost his bid to temporarily stop the state’s judicial commission from enforcing ethics rules that bar candidates from engaging in certain types of “political or campaign activity.”

Attorney Martin P. Sheehan is unlikely to succeed on the merits of his prior restraint claim against the West Virginia Judicial Investigation Commission and a counsel to the group, since the language of the state’s Code of Judicial Conduct “clearly indicates” that a violation can occur only “after the speech is uttered,” Judge Thomas E. Johnston of the US District Court for the Southern District ...