John Hey, who served as a Kanawha circuit judge for nearly two decades before he resigned amid sexual abuse charges and alcohol abuse, died at his home in Charleston on Thursday night. He was 85.
Hey's wife, Sarah Ellen Toney Hey, died in 2015, and the ex-judge's health had declined since then, his friend, Charleston lawyer Ed Rebrook said Friday.
"Last time I saw him he was very frail," said Rebrook, who learned of Hey's passing through the ex-judge's housekeeper.
Born in 1931, in Providence, Rhode Island, Hey was the oldest of three brothers and one sister. He often told juvenile offenders in his court how, at the age of 16, he was arrested for stealing cars parked outside a bar with keys in their ignitions. He went before a juvenile judge in Rhode Island, and spent a term in a youth home there.
Hey went on to Boston University, joined the Army and later moved to West Virginia. He graduated from law school at West Virginia University in 1970, at the age of 39.
Before taking the bench, Hey worked as assistant city manager in Wheeling and held a series of government jobs in Charleston. He ran twice unsuccessfully for the state House of Delegates before he was elected as a circuit judge in 1976. Many remember Hey's time on the bench for the way he sometimes yelled at lawyers and litigants.
"He was a screamer," said Rebrook. "He had a little bit of a Napoleon complex. He was five-six, five-seven. He began a very unfortunate time when he began drinking a little more, then, a lot more. And then he started drinking at the courthouse and that's what led to his downfall."
"He had his flaws," Charleston lawyer Richard Neely said, "But he was fair."
Neely, a former state Supreme Court justice, said Hey's rulings didn't get reversed very often by the Supreme Court. Neely also recalled Hey yelling and screaming at defendants who appeared before him. He then, though, would hand down a sentence of probation, Neely said.
Charleston Mayor Danny Jones, who was described in a Charleston Gazette article as occasionally a friend and foe of Hey's, said Friday that Hey became part of Alcoholics Anonymous in 1994 and remained sober the rest of his life.
"He was a colorful character who did not live without controversy," Jones said.
Kanawha Commissioner Kent Carper, who is also a lawyer, said he considered the former judge a good friend.
"I appeared in front of him, tried murder cases in front of him, drug cases in front of him. He was an excellent trial judge," said Carper. "He certainly had his difficulties and I'm sure everyone would love to talk about that. I will remember him as a good friend and, at the time, a very good trial judge."
Hey surrendered his law license in April 1995 as part of an agreement with the Judicial Investigation Commission to settle a sexual harassment case and for using vulgarity toward a court employee while presiding over a case under the influence of alcohol. He pleaded guilty the same year to misdemeanor battery charges, admitting to battering two women in January 1994 and December 1981.
During his June 1995 plea hearing, Hey cited a recent heart surgery, hypertension and other health problems. The plea deal between Hey and a special prosecutor stopped a grand jury investigation which could have resulted in Hey facing felony charges, which could have stripped Hey of his judge's pension.
Barlow-Bonsall Funeral Home in Charleston is in charge of arrangements, which were incomplete on Friday afternoon. An employee there said Hey would be buried at the Donel C. Kinnard Memorial State Veterans Cemetery in Dunbar.
Reach Kate White at kate.white@wvgazettemail.com, 304-348-1723 or follow @KateLWhite on Twitter.