Calling the basis of the motion "unsupported, irrational, and highly tenuous," a federal judge said he won't recuse himself from the case charging Miguel Quinones with violating gun laws.
Quinones, 37, who was acquitted in June of a murder charge, faces two counts of being a felon in possession of a firearm. Federal prosecutors filed the charge the day after he was found not guilty in the 2013 death of Kareem Hunter, who was beaten to death in a Marmet apartment and buried in a shallow grave in Raleigh County.
Quinones had requested that U.S. District Judge Joseph Goodwin recuse himself from the case because he's former U.S. Attorney Booth Goodwin's father. Booth Goodwin stepped down as U.S. Attorney of West Virginia's Southern District at the end of the year to run in the Democratic primary for governor. Judge Goodwin began accepting criminal cases in the district in April, as he had previously recused himself from all cases involving his son's office.
In a motion last month, lawyers for Quinones argued that the judge should recuse himself because federal law enforcement officers were investigating Quinones before Booth Goodwin stepped down.
Lawyers Christian Capece and Rachel Zimarowski, with the Federal Public Defender's Office, point to a 2014 report made by an agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. In the report, an agent described how, following a search on Dec. 3, 2013, the Kanawha Sheriff's Office, "contacted the United States Attorney's Office ... concerning [Mr. Quinones'] violations of the Federal Firearms Laws."
However, Assistant U.S. Attorney Jennifer Herrald wrote that after federal prosecutors referred authorities from the state to the ATF in 2013, "there was no contact with the federal court system in connection to the matter."
Judge Goodwin on Tuesday wrote in an order denying Quinones' motion that the commencement of criminal proceedings refers to the filing of a criminal complaint or the initiation of an actual case in a court of law. A criminal complaint was filed against Quinones on June 14 and he was indicted by a federal grand jury on June 21.
"It is the current U.S. Attorney, Carol Casto, whose name appears on the June 21, 2016 Indictment and the other filings on the docket. Accordingly, my son has and will not be involved in this proceeding, assigned to me long after his departure," the judge wrote.
The order denying the motion also notes that the U.S. Attorney's office had little involvement in the case before charges were filed against Quinones and that Booth Goodwin had no direct part.
"No reasonable observer, well-informed of the facts and circumstances, would question my ability to preside over this case impartially," Goodwin wrote in an order Tuesday, denying Quinones' motion. "There can be no more than baseless and speculative concerns about bias. My son is no longer the U.S. Attorney in this district, having resigned his office on December 31, 2015. He was not named at any point in the instant proceedings - the criminal complaint was filed against the defendant on June 14, 2016, approximately five and a half months after he left his position as U.S. Attorney."
Quinones is charged with having had two guns in Dunbar in October 2013 and two guns when he was arrested at his girlfriend's Charleston home on a probation violation in December 2013.
He was convicted 16 years ago of second-degree murder in the 1995 death of Christopher Reardon, a Beckley bar owner. He was released in 2011, but remained on probation. The felony conviction prohibited him from having a gun.
Quinones faces a maximum 20-year prison sentence if convicted of the federal charges.
Reach Kate White at kate.white@wvgazettemail.com, 304-348-1723 or follow @KateLWhite on Twitter.