W.Va. court deserved impeachment

The West Virginia House of Delegates voted to impeach all four justices of the West Virginia Supreme Court. A fifth one escaped by resigning last month and then pleading guilty to a federal charge of wire fraud.

(UPDATE: One impeached justice just resigned. See after the post.)

They are crooks and deserve to be booted out of office, and banned from seeking office in the state again. Sadly, they are only the latest in a revolving door of grifters who abused the highest judicial office in the state.

The state Supreme Court did OK for its first century or so, then in 1976 the unions put up three men who won the majority of the five seats: Sam R. Harshbarger, Thomas B. Miller, and Darrell V. McGraw Jr. They turned the court into a workers compensation mill, approving in favor of the employee any and all appeals.

If that was not bad enough, they took a case and loosened their own pension requirements without bothering to get the approval of the Legislature.

McGraw one summer took a state van, packed it with his family, and went on a National Lampoon-style road trip throughout the West and parts of Canada.

But a Democratic Legislature could not be bothered with reining him in. His term ended in 1988. Four years later, he came back like a bad penny as attorney general.

Then there was his brother, Warren, who was elected to the court in 1998. He had been the state Senate president a few years earlier. He decided to legislate from the bench. His most famous case involved a teenage boy convicted of molesting younger children.

Instead of sending the miscreant to a juvenile detention center as the law said, Warren McGraw decided to send him to work as a janitor at a high school.

That -- and a maniacal scream at a union Labor Day rally -- cost him re-election.

Brent Benjamin succeeded him. Don Blankenship spent $3 million to get him elected. Blankenship also helped elect Spike Maynard to the high court. He even went to the Riviera with Spike.

When it came time to hear a case involving Blankenship's Massey Energy, the two justices failed to recuse themselves. They ruled in favor of Massey. The plaintiff appealed, and the U.S. Supreme Court called for a second hearing on the appeal -- and practically ordered the two justices to recuse themselves.

In 2012, Allen Loughry, one of the court's law clerks, ran for justice. Actually two did, but only Loughry won a nomination. Loughry (pronounced law-free, as he said in his ads) had written a book, "Don't Buy Another Vote, I Won't Pay for a Landslide: The Sordid and Continuing History of Political Corruption in West Virginia."

He had helped lobby for public financing -- taxpayer-paid politicking. The Legislature decided to try it to see how it worked. Loughry became the first and only candidate to receive the money.

Once in office, Loughry continued to spend taxpayer money as if it were his own. He started using a state car over the holidays. He pushed for expensive renovations of the court's offices. He had taxpayers buy a $32,000 couch for his office. He took home a court computer, and an expensive antique desk.

When Kennie Bass of Channel 8 asked him about it, Loughry lied through his teeth.

In short, he was as corrupt as anyone in his book.

Which resulted in a 25-count federal indictment.

Spending other people's money is intoxicating. Justices Menis Ketchum and Robin Davis imbibed. Ketchum used a state car to commute 80 miles to his home. Davis bought an $8,000 chair. Her husband is one of the richest ambulance chasers in the state. They spent $3,000 each on statues of their dogs.

But public money is like holy water, right? Everybody takes a little.

Justices Peggy Workman and Davis approved pensions larger than the law allows for senior judges.

The fifth justice, Beth Walker, failed to blow the whistle on all this. And like the rest, she renovated her office. It was the in thing. I wonder whose buddy got the contract.

The state Constitution pretty much required these impeachments.

"Any officer of the state may be impeached for maladministration, corruption, incompetency, gross immorality, neglect of duty, or any high crime or misdemeanor," the state Constitution says.

The next step is two-thirds of the Senate accepting the impeachment, then a trial in the Senate, which will then vote on whether to remove them. The governor would appoint any replacements, subject to Senate approval.

The Associated Press reported, "A proposed constitutional amendment this fall would bring the state courts' budget partly under legislative control."

I was not going to vote for the thing because the Legislature has enough to do. But after this, I may change my mind.

Update from the man who broke the story that led to the impeachments.

Kennie Bass‏ @KennieBassWCHS 12m12 minutes ago

Justice Robin Davis is retiring from the @WVcourts after nearly 22 years on the bench. Her retirement is effective yesterday.

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