This is a follow-up to a post I wrote a few weeks ago about trouble on the WV Supreme Court (here: www.dailykos.com/...). Since that time, there have been new developments in the story, and I will cover those here. My sources: www.washingtonpost.com/…,
In August 2018, the WV House of Delegates voted to impeach all four of the sitting judges on the WV Supreme Court — a fifth justice had resigned earlier in the year before pleading guilty to wire fraud. The stated cause of the impeachment action was “unnecessary and lavish” spending of public money by the Supreme Court justices on office renovations.
Under current WV law, the Supreme Court is given total control over their own budget, so the offending office renovations may not be illegal. Yet, the indictments are damning: Chief justice Workman is alleged to have spend $122,000 on office renovations; justice Walker is alleged to have spent over $130,000 on her office; another justice resigned from the court in July, and then plead guilty to felony wire fraud; yet another justice was indicted on charges of fraud, lying, and witness tampering — and has since been found guilty of fraud in a federal court.
Many observers felt the impeachment effort was a power grab: Republicans on the state judiciary committee sat on the allegations of abuse for months until the date had passed when new justices would be elected to the Supreme Court. After August, any new justice would be selected by GOP Gov. Jim Justice to sit on the Supreme Court until 2020. As elected by the voters, the WV Supreme Court has a long-standing 3-2 Democratic split: the impeachments give WV conservatives an opportunity to choose a more conservative court.
However, Chief Justice Margaret Workman wasn’t interested in the proposed impeachment, and sued the legislature to keep her position, alleging that the impeachment was illegal because the legislature did not actually specify any misconduct, and thereby violated her due process.
However at the time, there is no valid WV Supreme Court to hear her case — all the justices were either suspended, and the acting replacement justices all recused themselves from hearing the case. So at the request of justice Workman, retired justice Thomas McHugh picked Harrison County Circuit Judge James Matish to serve as acting chief justice, who then appointed a panel of four acting associate justices. That panel last week ruled in justice Workman’s favor, saying her impeachment is an unconstitutional violation of the separation of powers. (In addition to the separation of powers bit, the court said the House had forgotten to include any “findings of fact” with the articles of impeachment.)
Yet, this ruling comes from a court that was not elected by the voters, or selected by the legislature or the governor. The GOP-controlled WV Senate decided to ignore this ruling of a makeshift court, and go ahead with the impeachment trial anyways. However, Justice Paul T. Ferrell — who is in charge of presiding over the impeachment trial — has now said the new court ruling prohibits him from bringing the case, and further action in the state senate is forestalled. The Republicans in the state House have said they would still present the articles of impeachment to the senate even though the senate was no longer planning to hear them.
Right now, it is a full-blown constitutional crisis in WV: the legislature no longer recognizes their own Supreme Court, and the only court available to make a ruling says the legislature is not following the laws of the state. One thing is clear: a politically independent judiciary in WV is in deep peril.
This story is still unfolding, and we can expect more news in the weeks ahead.
