VICTORY: Judge Who Exposed Foster Care Failures Wins Major Free Speech Victory

We have a major victory to report – and it’s a win for the First Amendment and the plight of foster children.

The Judicial Hearing Board of West Virginia has just recommended dismissing every charge against Judge Maryclaire Akers, the judge who was dragged before disciplinary authorities for the “offense” of speaking publicly about failures in West Virginia’s foster care system. In a Recommended Decision entered June 5, 2026, the Board concluded there was insufficient evidence to clearly and convincingly establish that Judge Akers violated any of the five rules she was charged with. It went further still – recommending that the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals award her attorney’s fees – making her financially whole for having to fight these bogus charges in court.

This is exactly the outcome we fought for when the ACLJ filed its amicus brief in this case.

As we told you when we entered this fight, Judge Akers never set out to make headlines. After learning that a child in the foster care system, who had been placed in a hotel by the state, had attempted suicide, she convened a public hearing and pressed for accountability. Then, in a March 2025 radio interview, she answered a few questions – limiting herself to what was already in her public order and in open court and expressly refusing to preview any future ruling.

For that, she was charged with violating five rules of judicial conduct. We stepped in with an amicus brief warning that this was a dangerous abuse of professional-conduct rules to silence inconvenient truths.

The Board’s decision vindicates the principle at the heart of our brief: The government cannot weaponize vague ethics rules to punish a public official for telling the public the truth.

The centerpiece was Rule 2.10(A), which the government wanted treated as a blanket gag order. The Board refused, holding it is a two-prong test – and the government failed to prove the key prong, that her statements might reasonably affect any judicial outcome. The parties stipulated she made no remarks on the credibility, merits, or legal positions of any case; the agency perceived no bias; and no one ever sought her recusal. There was no harm because there was no foul.

A concurring member of the Board went even further, warning that an overbroad reading would chill “entirely permissible, educational public communication by the judiciary” and affirming that “transparency is not an enemy of judicial integrity; it strengthens it.”

If a judge could be punished for speaking about systemic failures she witnessed firsthand, no licensed professional would be safe – attorneys, doctors, teachers, whistleblowers. This recommendation slams the door on that abuse. Professional licensing does not create a constitutional dead zone where the government gets to silence its critics. This is a decisive win for free speech – and for the courageous judge who refused to look away from children in crisis.

This is what the ACLJ does. Thank you for standing with us.