CHARLESTON – Kanawha County’s senior circuit court judge is retiring at the end of June.
Louis H. "Duke" Bloom submitted his resignation letter June 9. His last day on the bench will be June 30.
The 67-year-old Bloom was first elected to the court in 2000. Before that, he was a Kanawha County Commissioner for `4 years.
“I had decided I was not going to run for reelection (in 2024), and I thought so long as I was not going to do that I may as well give people the opportunity to run next year and give them as much time as possible,” Bloom said on MetroNews. “It seemed a good time for a transition. …
“It seems like yesterday I was the new kid on the block now I’m the most senior judge in Kanawha County.”
Gov. Jim Justice will appoint a replacement to serve the remainder of Bloom’s term, which ends in December 2024. His retirement means five of Kanawha County’s seven judges will have taken the bench since 2014.
“I feel good about the decision because we have almost a whole new bench and really a bunch of good qualified people and I feel like I’m leaving the Kanawha County judiciary in very good hands,” Bloom told MetroNews. “I’m really looking to doing mediations. I’ve obviously done a lot of that in helping resolve cases that were before me over the years.
“I think that’s a meaningful thing for people to have a say over how their cases are resolved.”
