RICHMOND, Virginia – A federal appeals court has affirmed a lower court ruling that said a Raleigh County family court judge was not entitled to judicial immunity after she stopped a 2020 court hearing to search a man’s home without a warrant.
The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals issued its opinion October 30 in the case involving former Raleigh County Family Court Judge Louise Goldston, who had appealed a ruling made last year by U.S. District Judge Frank Volk.
An attorney for the man whose home Goldston searched, Matthew Gibson, was pleased with the Fourth Circuit’s ruling.
Bryan
| Courtesy photo
“The system here worked at every level,” John Bryan told The West Virginia Record. “The judicial disciplinary counsel, Teresa Tarr in particular, took immediate action, conducting a thorough investigation and then instituting formal charges, culminating in a state Supreme Court opinion that held Judge Goldston accountable. Without that, none of this would have happened. The Legislature also took action, forcing her into retirement due to her defiance following the Supreme Court opinion.
“And now here, the federal judiciary has made an example out of her that will keep rogue judges in check for decades to come.”
During a March 4, 2020, divorce hearing, Goldston stopped the proceedings, asked Gibson for his address and ordered Gibson, his ex-wife, her attorney and law enforcement officers to meet at Gibson’s home. Once there, Goldston led a search of Gibson’s home without a warrant, threatened to have him arrested when he started recording the incident and had a bailiff seize his phone. Gibson was representing himself in the matter.
That started a chain of events, including lawsuits and disciplinary actions, which resulted in Goldston’s retirement earlier this year.
In its 15-page opinion, the Fourth Circuit said the only question it needed to answer was whether judicial immunity shielded Goldston’s actions.
“We hold that it does not,” the opinion states. “Judicial immunity protects only judicial acts. It does not shield the conduct of judges who step outside their judicial role, as Judge Goldston did when searching Gibson’s home. …
“Judicial immunity is strong medicine. When it applies, it is absolute. It not only protects judges from ultimate liability in a case, but also serves as a complete bar to suit. … But the medicine’s potency cautions against its indiscriminate prescription. And so there are limitations. Judicial immunity does not protect judges so much as it protects the judicial acts they undertake as part of their public service …
“We rest our holding that Judge Goldston is not so protected on the fact that she engaged in a nonjudicial act. Our decision is not grounded in any absence of jurisdiction. Rather, it is based on the fact that the judge clearly exceeded the most common understandings of the proper judicial role.”
The three-judge panel’s opinion, written by Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III and affirmed by Judge Roger L. Gregory and Senior Judge Diana Gribbon Motz, said a judge can enjoy such protection only when engaged in a judicial act within her jurisdiction.
“But Judge Goldston stepped outside of her judicial role when she personally participated in the search of Gibson’s home,” the opinion states. “The search of someone’s home and the seizure of its contents are executive acts, not judicial ones. We thus hold that her activities are not eligible for protections of judicial immunity.”
When Gibson’s ex-wife claimed items belonged to her, Goldston told her to take the items. Gibson says Goldston walked barefoot through his house and sat in a rocking chair.
“It was incredibly frustrating to have my rights and my privacy violated that day,” Gibson previously told The Record. “This lawsuit is about standing up for my rights and ensuring other people have a way to get justice when their rights are violated.”
After the incident, Goldston was reported to the state Judicial Investigation Commission, which charged her with violating the state Code of Judicial Conduct.
Goldston had served as a family court judge since 1994 until she retired in January. She presided over cases in Raleigh, Summers and Wyoming counties. Before this case, she never had been disciplined for judicial misconduct. But she did admit she had a 20-year practice of going to parties’ homes “to either determine if certain disputed marital property was present and/or to supervise the transfer of disputed property.”
She submitted her retirement letter January 30 a week after a House of Delegates resolution was introduced asking the House Judiciary Committee to investigate allegations of impeachable offenses against her.
In March 2021, Gibson filed the federal lawsuit against Goldston as well as the Raleigh County Commission and three sheriff’s deputies related to the incident. That was the same month the state Judicial Hearing Board issued its recommended decision to the state Supreme Court regarding Goldston’s actions after she had been charged with violating at least seven rules in the Code of Judicial Conduct after admitting she visited homes of litigants to check on disputed property.
Gibson’s legal team argued that judicial immunity is a judge-made doctrine that shields judges from being held civilly liable when they violate someone’s rights while acting in their judicial capacity.
“Judicial immunity should only apply when judges are actually acting as judges. Leading a search party is not acting like a judge,” attorney Victoria Clark said. “The lower court was completely correct when it denied Judge Goldston’s claim that she was entitled to judicial immunity, and we urge the Appeals Court to uphold that ruling.”
Goldston claimed she was entitled to judicial immunity and that Gibson’s claims should have been dismissed.
“When a judge acts like a police officer and leads a search party, that threatens the neutrality of the judicial process and chips away at a bedrock American principle: the separation of powers,” Anya Bidwell, another of Gibson’s attorneys, previously said. “Judges don’t get to act like police simply because they think they can do a better job.”
After Volk issued his order in July 2022 denying Goldston’s claim of judicial immunity, Goldston’s legal team filed her Fourth Circuit brief seeking to have a lower court ruling reversed. Gibson then filed a response and a motion to dismiss Goldston’s notice of appeal as frivolous.
In September 2020, the state Judicial Investigation Commission filed its formal statement of charges with the Supreme Court against Goldston.
Gibson, a federal law enforcement officer, was being represented by Bryan, a civil rights attorney from Union and by the Institute for Justice attorneys Clark, Bidwell and Patrick Jaicomo. Goldston was represented by Adam Strider, Jennifer Tully and John Fuller of Bailey & Wyant in Charleston.
“I also want to thank the Institute for Justice, and in particular attorney Patrick Jaicomo, who handled the appellate work at the Fourth Circuit,” Bryan told The Record. “I also was to thank my client, Matt Gibson, for fighting this for over three years and being an all-around fantastic client.”
The Institute for Justice is a national non-profit law firm that protects constitutional rights.
“Today is a victory not just for Matthew but for everyone who stands before a judge in a court of law and expects a fair hearing,” Jaicomo said. “The separation of powers exists for a reason, so that no one person can be judge, jury, and executioner. Checks and balances must be maintained to ensure a fair and free society, and judges who act beyond their constitutional mandate should not expect the protection of immunity.”
Gibson also was pleased with the 4th Circuit ruling.
“This has been a hard-fought battle, and I’m relieved to have the court agree these violations of my rights cannot stand,” Gibson said. “But I’m particularly pleased to know that the court’s ruling will not only safeguard my rights, but the rights of countless others who might otherwise suffer abuse at the hands of overstepping judges who think their robes hide them from the Constitution they are sworn to uphold.”
The case was a part of IJ’s Project on Immunity and Accountability, which fights to ensure that qualified, judicial, and prosecutorial immunities, among others, do not prevent individuals from vindicating their rights in court. If citizens must follow the law, government officials must follow the Constitution.
Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals case number 22-1757 (U.S. District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia case number 5:21-cv-00181; and West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals case number 20-0472)