It’s been a long time coming, now it’s gone. 

The right to have a speedy trial won out in this long and winding tale dating back five years.

The cases against former Wood County Sheriff James Brown and former Chief Deputy Miles Tucker were dismissed by Judge Joe Clayton in the 402nd District courtroom Friday afternoon. 

During the proceeding Clayton informed the court he had tried to find a prosecutor to take the cases but had been unable to find one.

“The attorney pro tem Joe Shearin informed the court Wood County was not going to pay him for his services so he dropped the cases. I talked to the DA (district attorney) in Hopkins County and he would not take the cases. I talked to the DA in Gilmer (Upshur County) and they told me no,” Clayton said. “I called the attorney general’s office to take these cases and no one would take them. I have no alternative other than to dismiss these cases.” 

Tucker’s attorney, Brett Harrison, said it’s good it has finally ended. “This had been going on a long, long time and what I’m focused on now is the fact that Miles can now resume his life, move on and get this mess behind him,” Harrison noted. “This has been weighing on him for years and years now. Frankly, I’m just glad it is over.” 

Brown had plenty to say about the situation.

“I have been trying for four years to have my day in court and that hasn’t happened. I would like to clear something up. It keeps being reported that the shooting took place on my property. That is not true, it took place on Mr. Boone’s (Jerry) property and had nothing to do with the bogus charges they came up with. Those people were trespassing and threatened my ranch hand with a pair of bolt cutters,” Brown explained. “He called me and I told him to call the sheriff’s office. He did call and the sheriff’s office responded. If it had been the city I would have told him to call the city. A sheriff does not give up his property rights when he is affected. Wheeler, Castloo and Fletcher seized on this. I am my own man and I did not work in their system up there.”

Brown continued talking about payment of the prosecutor. “Now they say the prosecutor has not been paid and that is not true. He has been paid $325,000 of the taxpayer’s money. The reason it got dismissed is they couldn’t win it with those bogus charges. They withheld information from the Grand Jury and they had documents in hand that showed the Forresters had no rights to be on that property,” Brown asserted. “It wasn’t connected to any oil lease. They cut the lock and left the gate open so the cows could get out. The ranch hand did what he was supposed to and called the sheriff’s office. They seized on that and charged me with official oppression. The sheriff’s department sent a deputy out there. I told Miles (Tucker) I couldn’t be involved in this on my property because I know what they will say. Miles said OK and that he would treat me the way he would any other citizen, and I know that is exactly what he did. I am a veteran of 45 years of law enforcement and they trashed it in five minutes by withholding information from a Grand Jury.”

Tucker has deep feelings about the situation. “I am elated and beyond happy the charges have been dismissed. I look forward to the future even though there is no way to get back what has been taken away from me by Castloo and Fletcher. I certainly look forward to the future and getting my life back. Castloo and Fletcher have pretty much taken away the last four years of my life. How does a man get that back?” questioned Tucker. “This was a vendetta. It doesn’t take a genius to see that this was something Castloo tried to start, or did start in 2015, and couldn’t get two Grand Juries to indict so he just kept trying. They withheld information and they lied. It’s been a constant stream of misinformation. The media all related this to the Boone shooting and this had nothing to do with that, zero. The simple fact of the matter is that Castloo was at that shooting. Technically, he was the ranking officer there.” 

Wood County Sheriff Tom Castloo was not happy with the decision. “I’m real disappointed in the inter-workings of the county government. It was an invalidation of a Grand Jury’s indictment by refusing to pay a bill on a deal they, the commissioners, had already made,” Castloo said. “It’s not my point to say Jim Brown or Miles Tucker were guilty or not guilty, but the fact a Grand Jury found reason to bring that in front of a jury, only to have it invalidated because of a bill payment issue makes me feel like justice was not heard. It’s a stain on Wood County.”  

Fletcher recused himself from the bench in the case. “This alleged offense occurred in 2015 and I wasn’t even the district judge then. I did not take office until January of 2017. In August of 2018 there was some indication that Mr. Tucker felt he might not be able to get a fair trial, so I voluntarily recused myself and asked the presiding judge to appoint someone where he would feel he was not being treated fairly,” Fletcher said. “I didn’t have anything to do with who they hired as a prosecutor. In 2015, I was still a regular lawyer.”

Brown has been under indictment since October 2017 on four charges of official oppression, and two counts of abuse of official capacity. The two felony charges had already been dropped in January.

Tucker had faced charges of aggravated perjury, Class-A official oppression, third-degree tampering with evidence and abuse of official capacity.