House Judiciary Committee members continued taking testimony into the evening Thursday as part of impeachment proceedings.
Late last month, the West Virginia Legislature convened its second special session. The West Virginia House of Delegates immediately took up and adopted House Resolution 201, which calls for investigating allegations of impeachable offenses against the Chief Justice and justices of the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals.
The meeting, which began Thursday morning, focused on testimony related to three legislative audit reports on the state’s highest court.
Judiciary Chief Counsel Marsha Kauffman called Justin Robinson, acting director of the Post Audit Division, as the first witness. Robinson testified about the legislative audit reports detailing alleged personal use of state vehicles from justices.
The first audit found Justice Allen Loughry had frequent use of state vehicles without listing a business purpose. The Legislative Auditor also questioned Loughry’s use of state-paid rental cars during out-of-state trips
The second audit found Justice Robin Davis had seven uses of a court vehicle where a destination was provided but no business purpose was listed.
The audit found no issues regarding vehicle reservations by Chief Justice Margaret Workman or Justice Beth Walker.
Delegate Andrew Robinson, D-Kanawha, made a motion to amend the rules of Judiciary Chairman John Shott, R-Mercer. Shott denied the amendment and Robinson challenged the ruling. However, that motion failed because Shott said there needed to be 10 members of the committee to join Robinson in that motion.
Many of the questions Thursday afternoon centered on out-of-state trips for conferences and the amount of miles from Justice Allen Loughry’s trips that Justin Robinson said exceeded the amount of miles from the hotel to the conference.
Committee Counsel called Legislative Auditor and Legislative Manager Aaron Allred as the second witness.
Many of the questions centered on a Cass Gilbert desk, valued at about $42,000, that the legislative audit report said was moved to Loughry’s house. Allred said the report found in June 2013, a moving company transported furniture to Loughry’s home. However, he could not say for sure what specifically was moved at that time.
Allred said it is his understanding Loughry later had court employees come to his house, while they were on the clock, to move the desk to a court warehouse.
Delegate Mark Zatezalo, R-Hancock, said, “it scares me that a law clerk was using a $42,000 desk,” referencing that Loughry used the desk during his time as a law clerk.
After a 45-minute break, the Judiciary Committee reconvened and called Justin Robinson back as a witness to testify about the third legislative audit report. This report questioned the spend down of the West Virginia Supreme Court’s excess fund balance, which went from $29 million to $333,514 in four years.
Justice Menis Ketchum submitted his letter of retirement/resignation on Wednesday. Judiciary Chair John Shott, R-Mercer, said the committee will not consider evidence against Ketchum because of that resignation.
Shott said because of this, he anticipates the agenda to be shortened by about a day. The committee recessed until 9 a.m. Friday.
