McDowell County Man Loses Supreme Court Appeal in 2008 Felony Case

The West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals closed the door on James Leonard Riley III's last appellate argument March 24, issuing a memorandum decision in docket No. 23-602 that upheld the Circuit Court of McDowell County's May 15, 2023 order revoking his supervised release and imposing a twenty-year prison term.

Riley, who was already required to register as a sex offender for life, was first indicted in McDowell County in 2008, in case CC-27-2008-F-55, on two counts of failure to provide notice of registration changes under the Sex Offender Registration Act, one count of sexual abuse by a custodian, and at least one additional count listed in the court record. He began serving a prison sentence in November 2019.

The supervised-release violations that ultimately led to the twenty-year term unfolded in stages. The State filed its first petition to revoke Riley's supervised release in May 2020. Riley admitted to the violation, and the circuit court sentenced him to one year in jail, warning at that hearing that after his release he would have "forty-nine (49) years of supervised release left to serve." The State returned with a second revocation petition in March 2021. Riley again admitted to violating his release conditions. He served 455 days on the second violation and walked out of jail on April 11, 2022. Less than fourteen months later, the McDowell County circuit court entered the May 15, 2023 order that revoked his supervised release entirely and imposed the twenty-year imprisonment term now affirmed by the state's highest court.

On appeal, Riley raised two arguments. He contended that the supervised-release period the circuit court ordered was disproportionate to his offenses, and he argued that the terms of his supervised release infringed on his constitutional right to exercise his religion by attending church. The Supreme Court rejected both claims without holding oral argument, finding "no substantial question of law and no prejudicial error" and issuing a memorandum decision under West Virginia Rule of Appellate Procedure 21(c).

Riley was represented by counsel R. Keith Flincham. The State was represented by Attorney General John B. McCuskey and Deputy Attorney General Andrea Nease. The memorandum notes that a new attorney general took office while the appeal was pending and that "his name has been substituted as counsel."

The Riley decision was among several memorandum decisions the Supreme Court issued that Tuesday. Chief Justice C. Haley Bunn dissented from the court's handling of the broader set of memorandum decisions issued that day, stating she would have set cases for oral argument and issued formal opinions rather than summary dispositions. It is not confirmed from the available record whether her dissent applied specifically to the Riley matter or to other cases in the batch.

The twenty-year sentence now stands as the final word from West Virginia's courts on a case that stretched from a 2008 indictment in Welch through more than five years of supervised-release proceedings in McDowell County's courthouse on Court and Wyoming Streets.