Samuel Hess is running for Circuit Court Judge in Division Two of the 22nd Judicial Court. Hess is a resident of Kingwood and a West Virginia native.
“I want Judges who call balls and strikes,” Hess said.
By: Lydia Crawley
The Parsons Advocate
The new year will bring a new Judicial Circuit to Tucker County. As part of a redistricting by the State, Tucker and Preston Counties will merge into a new 22nd Judicial Circuit. As a result of the redistricting, Tucker County has new Judicial Candidates. Samuel Hess, a veteran, resident of Kingwood and a West Virginia native, is running for Division Two of the 22nd Judicial Circuit.
Hess said he felt the redistricting of Preston and Tucker Counties into the new Circuit Court made sense due to the area’s shared values. “It struck me as a natural fit for Preston and Tucker Counties to be together,” Hess said. “I think the people share a lot of the same values, seem to be cut from the similar cloth.”
Hess outlined his opinion on what makes a good Judge. According to Hess, he feels that a good Judge is well prepared, understands the arguments, researches the law prior to hearings, understands the points in contest and can issue a fair ruling in accordance to the law and facts laid out before them. “I want Judges who call balls and strikes…I think if you can get a Judge that who do that, you are going to have a good Judge,” Hess said.
Hess said he has experience in court before Tucker County Judges, including Retired Judge Nelson. Hess said he felt the Judges in Tucker County were fair and well prepared, as well as well versed and did their due diligence with the facts as they were presented. “(I’ve) practiced here in front of Tucker County Judges back when I was in private practice before I was Chief Public Defender, ” Hess said. “They had good Judges here that did that.”
According to Hess, he has had experience with a variety of different law cases. Hess said he has courtroom experience with civil law, family court, appeals, complex civil litigation, abuse and neglect, as well as a variety of criminal law cases. “Primarily criminal defense in four different counties,” Hess said. “I ran the circuit on that and stayed really busy doing that.”
Hess said he was the first in the State to conduct a plea hearing online during Covid. According to Hess, his motivation for implementing modern technology came from the need to still process cases and the people that were still in jail during lockdown. Hess said Judge Shaffer was the first to allow him to plead cases online and allowed him to “think outside of the box and give it a shot to do it a little different then it was done in the past.” “I think I was the first person in the State of West Virginia to conduct a plea hearing via Microsoft Teams or Zoom or whatever we were using at the time,” Hess said. “I realized that we can’t have these jails filling up and not get people through the system. So, we had to do something.”
Hess said that technology is still being utilized in the courtroom even today. “We’re still using some of that on the back end even after all of this is over,” Hess said. “We are still utilizing technology if people are incarcerated in the southern part of the state or far away.”
Hess said that the number of cases the courts see is on the rise, mostly due to drug abuse with methamphetamine being the main issue faced by courts. Hess said it is an issue seen across the state . According to Hess, 10 years ago the issue was opioids and following the Opioid Crisis, methamphetamine moved in. Hess also said that fentanyl is beginning to move into the state and is often being laced in other drugs, often without the knowledge of the user which has led to an increase in overdose cases. “Case rates are rising,” Hess said. “We obviously have the problem with drugs.”
For the courts, Hess said the increase in drugs and lacing of drugs has caused an increase in positive drug tests. With so many users being supplied drugs laced with fentanyl, Hess said the court has seen an increase in positive tests for the drugs, even when the users had no idea they had taken it. “To keep people hooked on it, they sprinkle some fentanyl in it,” Hess said. “So people test positive all the time…Well, you (took fentanyl), you just didn’t realize and that is causing increases in the overdose rates.”
Hess said that the drug issues seen by the court also relates to many other issues including abuse and neglect. “That also carries over into the abuse and neglect,” Hess said. “That atmosphere, it tends to be a lot of the same people. They get strung out on meth, its kind of hard to raise your kids properly and take care of them. That’s causes a huge increase.”
Hess said he was a combat Infantry veteran with the 82nd Airborne Division, graduated with Honors in the top 10% of his class at the WVU College of Law, was Judicial Law Clerk for the Honorable Lawrance S. Miller, Jr. from 2012 to 2017 and is currently Chief Public Defender for the 18th Judicial Circuit.
Hess said he grew up in southern West Virginia around Beckley and Summersville, but now lives in Kingwood with his wife and three children.
