Acting West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals Chief Justice Paul Farrell speaks Tuesday with Justice Beth Walker during the second day of her impeachment trial. Photo by Perry Bennett, W.Va. Legislative Services

CHARLESTON — Members of the West Virginia Senate decided state Supreme Court of Appeals Justice Beth Walker should not be convicted of the lone article of impeachment for which she was charged.

Instead, senators chose to censure Walker for her actions that contributed to the 11 articles of impeachment adopted Aug. 13 by the House of Delegates. The censure resolution passed by voice vote with no discussion.

The decision came on day two of her impeachment trial. After nearly two hours of deliberation behind closed doors Tuesday, the Senate voted 32-1 in favor of not convicting Walker. She is the justice with the shortest tenure on the court. Only Sen. Stephen Baldwin, D-Greenbrier, voted to convict. Sen. Ryan Weld, R-Brooke, was absent because of a prior commitment.

Walker — who left the Senate chamber shortly after the verdict — was unavailable for comment, but released a statement Tuesday afternoon through the Supreme Court.

“I am grateful to the members of the West Virginia Senate for their careful deliberations and for permitting me to continue to serve the citizens of this great state as a Justice,” Walker said. “I look forward to getting back to the important work of deciding cases fairly and impartially based on the rule of law. In addition, we have serious work to do to improve the administration of the Court and prevent inappropriate future expenditures.”

Senate President Mitch Carmichael said senators heard the evidence and decided it did not rise to the level of impeachment.

“I want to point out to the people of West Virginia that we did this the right way,” said Carmichael.

But one Northern Panhandle delegate disagreed.

“I’m disappointed by their decision,” said Delegate Patrick McGeehan, R-Hancock. “It seems to me too much ‘group think’ may have taken place, where no one wanted to rock the boat much.

“At minimum, this judge tolerated and condoned corruption, incompetence and intentional deception–which to me, can be just as unethical as those who did the lying, stealing and cheating,” he said.

Still, a Wheeling senator said he believes the evidence should not have led to a conviction.

“This is a partisan body,” said Senate Majority Leader Ryan Ferns, R-Ohio. “We have Democrats and Republicans here, but if you saw the vote, it’s about as overwhelming as it gets short of being unanimous. There was a strong case in favor of Justice Walker saying there just wasn’t adequate evidence to impeach her.”

Senators heard from only one witness Tuesday morning. Mike McKown, the former director of the State Budget Office, testified about the condition of West Virginia’s finances during the time period when justices were spending more than $3.4 million on extravagant expenses.

Walker was charged Aug. 13 in one of 11 articles of impeachment along with all the justices at the time — Chief Justice Margaret Workman, Justice Allen Loughry and former Justice Robin Davis — with having no policies governing spending and use of state resources for personal use.

Ferns introduced the motion from the floor to censure her. An earlier effort Sept. 11 by House impeachment managers and attorneys to drop the impeachment articles against Walker and Chief Justice Margaret Workman and adopt a censure resolution against the justices was ruled out of order because senators had yet to hear the evidence.

“No time in history has a jury ever been part of a plea agreement,” said Senate Majority Whip Craig Blair, R-Berkeley. “That’s what the managers wanted us to do in the beginning, but we could not do that. We had to hear the facts.”

“There was an effort some people wanted to make to have an article of censureship adopted prior to ever hearing the evidence,” Carmichael said. “That would have exonerated (Walker) from any potential of impeachment. We didn’t do that.”

During closing statements, impeachment manager John Shott reminded senators about Walker’s answers regarding catered working lunches paid for by the taxpayers with state purchasing cards. Shott argues that the lunches violate the State Ethics Act and the constitutional cap on justice salaries.

“As hard as I tried, I was unable to get Justice Walker to admit that there was anything wrong with this practice,” Shott said. “The best I could get from her was it wasn’t illegal.”

Shott pointed out that while Walker did pay back a fifth of the cost of the lunches, it didn’t happen until a Freedom of Information Act request was made for the cost of the lunches and Walker asked to be told the cost before the FOIA was sent.

“It was significant for her to make sure that was done before the information was provided in connection with the FOIA request,” Shott said. “One of my favorite statements is the true measure of a character is what you do when no one is looking. Now we see someone was looking.”

Mike Hissam, counsel for Walker, gave a closing statement encouraging the Senate to pay close attention to the documents entered into evidence. Hissam told senators to pay attention to what Walker did starting when she took office in January 2017.

“She was a single lone justice in the minority,” Hissam said. “She was never chief justice.”

Hissam placed much of the blame for spending and policies on prior chief justices and the court administrators. He also said Walker tried to fight against pay raises voted on by the court, but was outvoted.

“When she resisted the raises in judicial conference, she was outvoted,” Hissam said. “She was saying we shouldn’t do this.”

The next justice scheduled to be tried by the Senate is Workman on Oct. 15, followed by Davis on Oct. 29 and Loughry on Nov. 12.