Robin Davis, Beth Walker File Lawsuits in West Virginia Supreme Court Impeachment Fight
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CHARLESTON -- Adding another wrinkle to the impeachment process against members of the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals, a justice who resigned is taking those who initiated the process and voted for her impeachment to federal court.
Meanwhile, the two remaining women on the Supreme Court who are facing impeachment disagree on whether the process needs to be stopped.
Robin Jean Davis, who resigned Aug. 13 when the House of Delegates adopted 11 articles of impeachment against all remaining elected justices, filed a complaint Wednesday in the U.S. District Court of Southern West Virginia.
Justice Beth Walker's attorneys also filed a brief Wednesday with the state Supreme Court in the case brought by Chief Justice Margaret Workman to halt the impeachment process in the state Senate.
Davis' complaint said the House had no factual or legal basis for impeaching the justices, calling the charges incomplete and invalid.
Davis' attorneys said the process violates her constitutional rights of free speech, due process, equal protection and violates the state Constitution's requirement for separation of powers and judicial independence.
"The facts cited purportedly to support impeachment do not remotely rise to the level of impeachable conduct," her attorneys wrote. "But the House was not interested in investigating whether the facts warranted impeachment. Instead, it used these charges as a pretext to remove all four Justices on West Virginia's highest Court so that the governor could replace the popularly elected Justices with Republican men and create a 'conservative court' for years to come."
Defendants in Davis' complaint include Gov. Jim Justice, who called the Legislature into special session June 26 to start the impeachment process and appointed her replacement after she reigned. She named every member of the House who voted to impeach her and as the state senators who voted to continue her impeachment trial even though she had already resigned. She also named the clerks for the House and Senate.
Davis was charged with spending more than $500,000 on office renovations and furnishings. She was charged twice with approving -- during her term as chief justice -- the overpaying of senior status judges beyond a cap in order to circumvent the state's retirement system and the Internal Revenue System.
In article 11, Davis with Workman, Walker and Justice Allen Loughry were charged with not implementing financial controls and internal policies on spending, vehicles and travel and bidding processes.
Walker's impeachment trial starts at 9 a.m. Monday in the Senate chambers. It's the first of the four impeachment trials, followed by Workman on Oct. 15, Davis on Oct. 29 and Loughry on Nov. 12.
"Justice Walker is ready, willing, and eager to present her case before the Senate," her lawyers wrote. "As a result, she respectfully requests that this court not issue a stay affecting her trial."
Workman filed a petition Sept. 21 with the Supreme Court requesting it order the Senate to halt the impeachment process. Her attorneys are arguing that the process is unconstitutional.
In Davis' complaint, her lawyers said she could not be removed from the Supreme Court through impeachment because she transmitted a letter announcing her retirement the same day the House was voting on impeachment articles. She cited the resignation of former Justice Menis Ketchum, who announced his resignation July 11, the day before the House Judiciary Committee began its impeachment investigation.
"Because Justice Davis has retired, she, like Justice Ketchum, cannot be removed from the court," the complaint said. "Nonetheless, she, unlike Justice Ketchum, was named in the articles of impeachment."
The complaint alleges that the House did not include findings of fact with their impeachment articles, violating the rules they adopted for impeachment procedures in June.
Her lawyers further allege that the House didn't have enough evidence to impeach her over office renovations because the house had not received all the invoices.
Regarding overpayment of senior status judges, Davis' lawyers said the court has the authority to appoint and compensate judges as they see fit.
"Although there is a statutory cap on the total amount of compensation that may be made to senior status judges, that statutory restriction cannot constrain the judiciary's constitutional authority," her lawyers wrote.
One of the major claims is that the impeachment of all four justices was a "power grab" to remove Democrats from the court and replace them with conservative justices. Her lawyers also said gender bias played a role because the majority of the justices that were impeached are women.
Davis is asking for a declaratory judgment declaring that the impeachment process entered into by the governor, the House, and the Senate is "improper, invalid, and contrary to law."
Two members of the House, Delegates Michael Folk, R-Berkeley, and Pat McGeehan, R-Hancock, expressed concerns about Workman and Davis using the courts to attempt to circumvent the authority of the Legislature and its impeachment powers.
"Article Four, Section Nine of the state Constitution makes it abundantly clear: 'The House of Delegates shall have the sole power of impeachment. The Senate shall have the sole power to try impeachments,'" Folk said. "'Sole power' means 'sole power,' that the legislative branch alone has the authority to consider and try impeachments."
"In matters of impeachment, the Legislature does not answer to the state Supreme Court or federal courts, it answers only to the voters of our state," McGeehan said. "The people will hold us accountable, not a group of hand-picked judicial allies or colleagues on the federal bench."