May a chief probation officer mentor a juvenile in the Mountaineer Challenge Academy?
Apply this to your situation
This page answers the general question as of 2022. Ask about yours and see what the current rules of professional conduct in your state say for your facts, with citations.
Plain-English summary
A chief probation officer was a certified Mountaineer Challenge Academy mentor. A detained juvenile applying to the academy needed a female mentor. The chief was not the juvenile’s assigned probation officer and asked whether she could serve in the mentoring role.
The Commission permitted the mentoring on one express condition: the chief probation officer had to be screened from any participation as a probation officer in the juvenile’s criminal case.
In practice
The opinion permits the described academy mentoring only with a screen separating the chief from the juvenile’s criminal case.
Common questions
Q: Could the chief probation officer be the academy mentor?
A: Yes, if screened from probation-officer participation in the juvenile’s criminal case.
Q: Was the chief already assigned to that case?
A: No. The request says she was not the juvenile’s assigned probation officer.
Background and rules framework
The opinion gives a fact-specific answer about a court employee’s mentoring role and an exclusion from the juvenile’s criminal case. It does not cite a numbered Code provision.
See also
Source
- Landing page: West Virginia Judicial Investigation Commission advisory opinions
- Original PDF: JIC Advisory Opinion 2022-11, redacted
Original opinion text
Best-effort transcription from a scanned PDF. Minor errors may remain; the linked PDF is authoritative.
JUDICIAL INVESTIGATION COMMISSION
City Center East - Suite 1200 A
4700 MacCorkle Ave., SE
Charleston, West Virginia 25304
(304) 558-0169 • FAX (304) 558-0831
February 15, 2022
Re: JIC Advisory Opinion 2022-11
Dear
Your recent request for an advisory opinion was reviewed by the Judicial Investigation Commission. A chief probation officer is also a certified mentor for the Mountaineer Challenge Academy. A juvenile who is currently in detention awaiting placement has been given permission to apply for the Mountaineer Challenge Academy. If accepted, she will go on probation until she obtains her HiSet. She needs a female mentor and the chief probation officer wants to know if she can serve as the girl's mentor. She is not the probation officer assigned to the juvenile. You want to know if she can serve in that capacity.
The Commission is of the opinion that the Chief Probation Officer may serve as the juvenile's mentor for the Mountaineer Challenge Academy as long as she is screened from any participation as a probation officer in the juvenile's criminal case.
We hope that this opinion fully addresses the issue which you have raised. Please do not hesitate to contact the Commission should you have any questions, comments or concerns or desire additional advice.
F. Layton Cottrill, Jr., Esquire, Vice- Chairman1 Judicial Investigation Commission
FLC/tat
cc: , Director Probation Services
1
JIC Chairman Alan D. Moats, Judge of the 19th Judicial Circuit has been appointed as a temporary Justice of the Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia beginning February 7, 2022 following the February 6, 2022 resignation of former Justice Evan Jenkins. Judge Moats will serve as a Justice until such time as Governor Justice has filled the vacancy and the appointee takes the bench. Until that time, Judge Moats will serve as a non-voting ex officio member of the JIC.
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