Stuart Announced Candidate for WV Attorney General
CHARLESTON, W.Va.- In his first act of the 2024 Legislative Session, Senator Mike Stuart, 7th District, will introduce the death penalty for cases in which first responders are murdered in the line of duty.
“If you target first responders in the line of duty leading to death, the death penalty should be on the table,” said State Senator Mike Stuart. “This isn’t about vengeance. This is about justice. State Trooper Sgt. Cory Maynard was ambushed and fatally shot in the line of duty in an intentional murder of a first responder. Justice demands more than a mere prison sentence in cases like that of Sergeant Maynard.”
Since 2020, multiple law enforcement officers in the State of West Virginia have been fatally shot and murdered in the line of duty including Sgt. Maynard, Nicholas County Sheriff’s Deputy Thomas Baker, and Charleston Police Department Officer Cassie Johnson. Many others were targets including, most recently, State Troopers Cadin Spessert and Abe Bean, who were brutally shot multiple times during the service of a misdemeanor arrest warrant in Martinsburg.
“There is no “ordinary” day for first responders. Every day and every call is fraught with potentially life-threatening danger. We must defend our first responders and make clear that we will not tolerate these acts of depravity and reckless disregard for the men and women who serve to protect each of us,” said Stuart. “Justice demands nothing less. It is justice that we must seek in defense of our men and women in service, their families, and all the good people of West Virginia.”
Stuart continued, “Life is really about all those special moments over the course of lifetime. In each of every case, these senseless murders are tragic- for those that lost their lives but also for all those to which they were connected- their communities and their families. Each of these brave men and women senselessly murdered in the line of duty and their families have had their “lifetime of special moments” brutally stolen. Justice demands more than mere incarceration.”
Stuart was the West Virginia Co-Chair of President Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign and is a former United States Attorney for the Southern District of West Virginia where he led the historic prosecution of justices of the West Virginia State Supreme Court of Appeals as well as a record prosecutions and raids related to the opiate crisis. Stuart led the largest takedown in West Virginia history in what was called “Operation Saigon Sunset,” in which nearly 100 individuals were targeted from Huntington to Detroit. Stuart is in his first term representing the counties of Lincoln, Logan, Boone and Kanawha.
Stuart has announced he will seek the office of Attorney General in the 2024 primary.
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