D. Mark Snyder, who had served as family judge in Kanawha County for 16 years, died Friday. He was 64.
Snyder decided last year not to run for reelection. He had been a family court judge since former Gov. Bob Wise appointed him in 2000, when the West Virginia family court system was created.
Snyder opened West Virginia's first local public defender office in Summersville in 1983. He also worked for a time as a public defender in Mingo County and in 1987, he worked as a federal public defender for the Southern District of West Virginia.
He served as Kanawha's chief deputy public defender until he was appointed as juvenile referee for the circuit court in 1994.
After a trial in Kanawha Magistrate Court in 2014, a jury found Snyder not guilty of battery against a health-care provider. The judge had been accused of yelling at and grabbing the arm of a nurse at CAMC General Hospital in November 2013.
During the trial, Snyder's lawyer Jim Cagle, said that if the judge had touched the nurse, it would have only been because he suffered from a neurological disorder, which caused him to be unsteady and walk with a cane. Snyder testified that he didn't recall touching the nurse at all.