West Virginia Legislature Has Forced One Of Its Supreme Court Justices Off the Bench, and Its House Judiciary Committee Has Prepared Articles of Impeachment Against the Remaining Four

It's actually called the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals but the function is of a state supreme court, so I simplifiedfor the headline.

They're being charged with lavish spending on the taxpayers' dime.

The West Virginia House Judiciary Committee approved 14 articles of impeachment against the four sitting justices of the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals on Tuesday.

The eighth day of the committee's meetings regarding possible impeachment produced the first material results when 14 articles of impeachment were introduced at 9:25 a.m.

...

The articles serve as formal charges or accusations that the justices committed one of the impeachable offenses listed in Section 9, Article 4 of the West Virginia Constitution.

The articles of impeachment charge Chief Justice Margaret Workman and Justices Robin Davis, Allen Loughry and Beth Walker with maladministration, corruption, incompetency, neglect of duty and certain high crimes.

In total, Loughry is the subject of eight articles of impeachment. Workman and Davis each are the subject of four and Walker is the subject of two.

Former justice Menis Ketchum was not a subject of impeachment because he resigned from the bench last month.

Streiff, from whom I got the article, opines that the federal Congress should take a page from the West Virginia legislature's book. Impeachment is one of their powers -- in theory. But it's a use-it-or-lose-it sort of thing. When you don't use a power, many begin to consider it dead-letter and unofficially repealed.

To borrow a concept from our former neocon friends: For too long we have prioritized "stability" over all other things. This has in fact given us "stability," but it's the "stability" of the cesspool, at rest only because the shit can descend no lower.

When the stability produced is the lowest-lying shit, maybe it's time to risk shaking things up a bit.

posted by Ace of Spades at 03:28 PM

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