Reports of corruption, lavish overspending, and abuses of authority on the part of West Virginia’s four sitting Supreme Court justices have dominated area headlines in recent months — and state lawmakers have finally decided to do something about it.
All four of West Virginia’s Supreme Court justices were impeached by a vote in the state House of Delegates on Monday.
Overstepping their bounds
According to The Hill, all four justices were impeached for abusing their authority. Two of them were also impeached for overspending taxpayer money on office renovations, and one was also impeached for using state-owned equipment and vehicles for personal activities.
Justice Allen Loughry was impeached on eight separate counts that included spending more than $363,000 on office renovations, as well as for transferring a $42,000 antique desk and state-owned computers to his home. He was also charged with using state-owned vehicles for personal use and for lying to members of the House Finance Committee about the issues.
Aside from being impeached from the court, Loughry faces other trouble in the form of a federal indictment on multiple felony counts that include mail and wire fraud, lying to federal investigators, obstruction of justice and witness tampering, among others, according to NBC News.
Justice Robin Davis was impeached for her abuse of authority and for spending more than $500,000 on office renovations.
More scandal
Chief Justice Margaret Workman and Justice Beth Workman were let off the hook for the cost of their own office renovations — $111,000 and $131,000, respectively — but were nevertheless impeached for abuse of authority.
At issue for Workman was her signing off on allowing senior status judges to receive higher wages than were allowed by state law.
A former justice who would have been the fifth sitting justice — and likely would have been impeached along with the others — was Menis Ketchum, who resigned from the bench in disgrace in July and has since pleaded guilty to one count of federal wire fraud.
The impeachment process will now move to the state Senate for a trial with Circuit Judge Paul T. Farrell specially sworn in to serve as chief justice temporarily. The trial should begin in September, though a clear timeline for the procedure has yet to be set.
[show_poll poll_id=720]
Should the four justices ultimately be found guilty and removed from office by the state Senate, West Virginia’s Republican Gov. Jim Justice will be allowed to appoint justices to replace them who would serve until at least 2020, at which point new elections would be held. Had the justices been impeached prior to August 14, their seats would have been placed on this year’s ballot.
These four state supreme court justices are all alleged to have abused the authority vested in them and wasted taxpayer money on frivolous and personal expenses — and evidently, corruption like that simply won’t be tolerated in West Virginia.
1,009 Responses
After exploring a number of the blog posts on your web page, I really appreciate your technique of writing a blog. I saved it to my bookmark webpage list and will be checking back in the near future. Take a look at my web site as well and let me know your opinion.
excellent points altogether, you simply gained a new reader. What would you recommend about your post that you made some days ago? Any positive?
We stumbled over here by a different web page and thought I may as well check things out. I like what I see so now i’m following you. Look forward to looking into your web page repeatedly.|
That is a really good tip particularly to those fresh to the blogosphere. Brief but very accurate info… Thanks for sharing this one. A must read article!
Way cool! Some extremely valid points! I appreciate you writing this article and the rest of the site is also really good.
Howdy! I’m at work surfing around your blog from my new apple iphone! Just wanted to say I love reading through your blog and look forward to all your posts! Carry on the superb work!|
Hello, constantly i used to check blog posts here early in the morning, as i enjoy to learn more and more.|
Thanks for the good writeup. It in fact was a leisure account it. Glance complex to far brought agreeable from you! However, how can we keep up a correspondence?
I’d like to find out more? I’d want to find out some additional information.|
I just couldn’t depart your web site prior to suggesting that I actually enjoyed the standard information an individual provide to your visitors? Is gonna be back steadily in order to inspect new posts|
hey there and thanks for your information – I’ve definitely picked up anything new from right here. I did then again expertise some technical issues the use of this web site, as I skilled to reload the web site lots of occasions prior to I may just get it to load properly. I had been thinking about in case your hosting is OK? Now not that I am complaining, but sluggish loading circumstances instances will very frequently have an effect on your placement in google and can damage your quality rating if ads and ***********|advertising|advertising|advertising and *********** with Adwords. Anyway I’m including this RSS to my email and can glance out for much extra of your respective interesting content. Make sure you update this again very soon..
Well I sincerely enjoyed reading it. This subject procured by you is very effective for correct planning.
Very good information. Lucky me I discovered your site by chance (stumbleupon). I have saved it for later!
Admiring the time and effort you put into your website and in depth information you present. It’s great to come across a blog every once in a while that isn’t the same outdated rehashed material. Excellent read! I’ve saved your site and I’m adding your RSS feeds to my Google account.|
I visited several web sites but the audio feature for audio songs existing at this web page is truly superb.|
Superb, what a webpage it is! This web site gives useful facts to us, keep it up.|
I have to express some appreciation to this writer just for bailing me out of this type of difficulty. After searching through the the net and obtaining notions that were not beneficial, I believed my life was done. Living without the answers to the issues you have solved through your main review is a critical case, and ones which might have negatively damaged my career if I had not discovered the blog. Your good ability and kindness in maneuvering all the stuff was very useful. I’m not sure what I would’ve done if I had not encountered such a stuff like this. I am able to at this moment look forward to my future. Thanks a lot very much for this reliable and effective help. I will not think twice to suggest your web blog to anyone who will need support about this situation.
I was suggested this blog by way of my cousin. I’m no longer positive whether this publish is written through him as nobody else understand such exact about my trouble. You are incredible! Thank you!
hello!,I like your writing very a lot! share we be in contact more about your post on AOL? I need an expert on this house to solve my problem. Maybe that’s you! Looking forward to look you.
It’s awesome to go to see this web site and reading the views of all colleagues on the topic of this piece of writing, while I am also keen of getting know-how.|
I’ll right away snatch your rss feed as I can’t find your e-mail subscription hyperlink or e-newsletter service. Do you have any? Please permit me recognise so that I may subscribe. Thanks.|
wonderful points altogether, you just gained a brand new reader. What could you suggest about your put up that you made some days ago? Any certain?
Hello! I could have sworn I’ve been to this site before but after looking at many of the posts I realized it’s new to me. Anyways, I’m definitely delighted I stumbled upon it and I’ll be book-marking it and checking back often!
Hello there, I believe your web site might be having browser compatibility problems. When I look at your website in Safari, it looks fine however when opening in Internet Explorer, it’s got some overlapping issues. I simply wanted to provide you with a quick heads up! Besides that, wonderful website!
After I originally left a comment I appear to have clicked the -Notify me when new comments are added- checkbox and from now on whenever a comment is added I recieve 4 emails with the exact same comment. There has to be a way you are able to remove me from that service? Thanks!
It is in reality a nice and helpful piece of information. I’m satisfied that you simply shared this useful information with us. Please stay us informed like this. Thank you for sharing.
Hey there just wanted to give you a quick heads up. The text in your content seem to be running off the screen in Ie. I’m not sure if this is a format issue or something to do with web browser compatibility but I thought I’d post to let you know. The design look great though! Hope you get the issue fixed soon. Kudos|
My brother recommended I would possibly like this blog. He used to be totally right. This submit truly made my day. You can not consider simply how a lot time I had spent for this info! Thank you!
I would like to thank you for the efforts you have put in writing this blog. I really hope to check out the same high-grade content from you later on as well. In fact, your creative writing abilities has encouraged me to get my own website now 😉
Peculiar article, exactly what I wanted to find.|
Hello there! I just wish to give you a big thumbs up for your excellent info you have right here on this post. I am coming back to your site for more soon.
Hello there! This post could not be written much better! Reading through this article reminds me of my previous roommate! He continually kept talking about this. I’ll send this information to him. Pretty sure he’s going to have a good read. Thank you for sharing!
I was recommended this web site by my cousin. I am not sure whether this post is written by him as nobody else know such detailed about my trouble. You are amazing! Thanks!
Excellent way of telling, and nice paragraph to take data on the topic of my presentation topic, which i am going to deliver in university.|
276256 252920Thank you for this. Thats all I can say. You most undoubtedly have created this into something thats eye opening and critical. You clearly know so considerably about the topic, youve covered so many bases. Wonderful stuff from this part of the internet. 86340
Hi there everyone, it’s my first pay a visit at this web page, and paragraph is truly fruitful in support of me, keep up posting such articles or reviews.|
Hello, i think that i noticed you visited my blog thus i came to go back the prefer?.I’m trying to to find issues to enhance my web site!I suppose its adequate to make use of a few of your concepts!!|
أخبار المملكةأخبار محليةأخبار السعوديةمحلياتأخبار أخبار أخبار المملكة العربية السعوديةالسعوديةالمملكة العربية السعودية