2016 WV Supreme Court Candidate Profiles Story Archives

Primary Day Only Time to Vote for W.Va. Supreme Court Candidates

May 10 is Primary Day in West Virginia and the only time this election season voters can pick their choice for the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals.

West Virginia’s primary is the only time state voters can choose judicial officers at all levels, from magistrate all the way to Supreme Court. This year is also the first time judicial officers will be elected on a nonpartisan basis.

In the Supreme Court race, voters have a choice between former Attorney General Darrell McGraw, Morgantown attorney Beth Walker, Clay County attorney Wayne King, former state lawmaker Bill Wooton, and current justice Brent Benjamin. All five are vying for the one open seat on the state’s high court.

Polls will be open until 7:30 p.m. Tuesday.

Former State Legislator & Longtime Attorney, Wooton Runs for W.Va. Supreme Court

Bill Wooton is a former legislator who held office for 26 years, but has been a practicing attorney for almost 45. Now he wants to add the title of Supreme Court Justice to his name.

Wooton’s resume is a long one. Raised in Beckley, he graduated from Marshall University in 1966 and got his law degree from West Virginia University in 1971.

Wooton became a clerk for a judge on the United States Circuit Court of Appeals for the fourth circuit, then an assistant attorney general, followed by nearly 3 years as a prosecutor.

Wooton resigned from his job as prosecutor to run for the West Virginia State Legislature.

“I served in the Legislature a total of 26 years,” Wooton said, “Ended up being majority leader at one time in the House of Delegates and I served as chairman of the Judiciary Committee in the Legislature for 10 years. My service began with the 1976 election, and I was last in the Legislature in 2010.”

Wooton has also spent years in private practice, where his work continues today. But it was during his time as a lawmaker that Wooton realized being a judge was his dream.

“A friend of mine told me I acted more like a judge than a legislator. I was chairman of a committee, and in that role, you pretty well try to achieve some measure of fairness; let people have their say in favor of a measure or opposed to the measure, and you know, she said that to me, and it kind of stuck with me, and I thought, well that’s really what I’ve always wanted to do,” he explained.

Wooton is one of two candidates using the public campaign financing system to fund his judicial race. The program is only available to Supreme Court candidates who meet various requirements to receive the $500,000 in taxpayer funding. While some of his competitors are adamantly against the system, Wooton defends it.

“I think most members of the public appreciate the reason why the Legislature enacted the statute,” he noted, “It’s intended to lessen the impact of enormous sums of outside money, and I think most members of the public appreciate that. I think if you have a case that goes before the Supreme Court, you’ll feel better about it if you’re aware that no judge was elected with overwhelming financial contribution from your opponent.”

Wooton fought for his belief and his participation in the program when another Supreme Court candidate, Beth Walker, sued his campaign.

“I believe that what she did in my case was a quote, frivolous lawsuit,” he said, “I think it was a tactical effort to impede my campaign.”

In the lawsuit, Walker’s campaign argued Wooton failed to meet certain filing deadlines and the State Election Commission erred in awarding him public money. Wooton argues the basis of her complaint was a minor technical violation.

“There’s a statute that has certain deadlines in it, and every deadline in that law I met,” he explained, “The administrative agency charged with enforcing the law, on their own, decided to put some additional deadlines in regulation, not in the law, and shame on me, I did not carefully study the regulations.”

Wooton says the regulations require candidates to file a formal request for the money within two business days of being certified by the State Election Commission as eligible for the program. He filed his on the third day. After the lawsuit against his campaign and another against fellow candidate Brent Benjamin over the regulations, Wooton expects the SEC will revisit the program guidelines.

And he says he’s also been attacked for another part of the judicial election process – partisanship.

This is the first time a judicial election has been non-partisan in West Virginia and the first time all judicial officers will be elected during the May 10 primary. Wooton says he has mixed feelings about the change. He’s concerned a candidate could be elected with less than 50 percent of the vote — because of the vote being split between five candidates.

“I don’t know what the Legislature’s intent was. I suspect that was an unintended consequence,” Wooton said, “I think the public is best served by a person elected by a majority of the voters.”

And in recent weeks, negative ads have appeared on television stations across the state claiming Wooton and fellow Supreme Court candidate Darrell McGraw are part of an “old boy network” in state government. A news release from the Wooton campaign says the ads were funded by more than $500,000 of outside money provided by a special interest group. And the end of each TV ad calling Wooton out, says it’s paid for by the Republican State Leadership Committee – Judicial Fairness Initiative.

Wooton https://vimeo.com/164430717″>responded to the negative ads with an ad of his own attacking the special interest group.

“The very people who wanted this election to be non-partisan, now are injecting partisanship into the election,” he noted.

With Primary Day on May 10 fast approaching, Wooton is hopeful he’ll win the seat. He says he’s the best choice for the Supreme Court, because public service has been a major part of his life.

“I think that the experiences and the abilities that I have, such as they may be, ideally qualify me to be a justice on the Supreme Court of Appeals,” Wooton said, “I think it’s the culmination of the sum total of my life’s work.”

Walker Says She'll be a Conservative Justice for W.Va.

Beth Walker is running for the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals.

The name may be familiar to you, maybe because of her unsuccessful bid for the high court in 2008, or maybe because of her legal challenge to opponents Brent Benjamin and Bill Wooten’s use of public campaign financing in the race, but now, Walker is traveling the state to make sure voters recognize her for her conservative values.

“I don’t have other political aspirations. I don’t hope to run for Justice and then run for something else in the future, I just want to be a good judge,” Walker said in a 2008 interview.

In addition to being a good judge, Walker said in the interview she wanted to help rebuild the reputation of West Virginia’s highest court, the Supreme Court of Appeals. Those were the two main reasons she ran to be a justice then and eight years later, those are the reasons she’s trying her hand at a seat once again.

“I have a conservative vision for our Supreme Court of Appeals and that means very simply that the court has to be fair and impartial and decide cases based on the law,” Walker said, “not based on who the parties are, not based on where you are from, not based on an individual Justice’s personal preference, but rather based purely on the law.”

Walker is from Ohio, but has spent nearly 30 years in West Virginia, the past 6 working as in-house counsel for the West Virginia University Hospital system.

Now, she’s traveling the state, meeting with voters and sharing her ideas.

“If you have an activist judge on the court who thinks it’s their place to second guess what the Legislature does, then I don’t think that’s good for West Virginia,” Walker told about a dozen women at a ‘Women for Walker’ event at Giuseppe’s Italian Restaurant in Mt. Hope.

This idea, that Justices shouldn’t legislate from the bench, is one Walker discusses a lot. She shared that message with the women at her luncheon, in that 2008 interview, and in one of her recent television ads.

But Walker hasn’t shied away from sharing her opinions about legislation either. Like her stances on substance abuse. Walker says the state needs increased access to treatment and stricter penalties for drug dealers, things she can’t accomplish on the bench, but what she can do is make sure people are talking about it.

“I knew intellectually of course that it was happening and there were problems, but until I started going to our communities and counties all over the state talking to people,” she said, “I’ll admit I didn’t have a sense of how serious it is and I think we have to be talking about it much more.”

Walker also tried to take on another area of legislation — the state’s public campaign financing program.

The program allows Supreme Court candidates who meet certain requirements to fund their campaign with $500,000 provided by the state. Two of Walker’s opponents chose to use the program and Walker sued them both, saying they missed deadlines laid out in the law.

“I have no philosophical problem with the program,” Walker said, “but the reason I filed the appeals were because the rules weren’t being followed as they had been promulgated by the Legislature and I thought that before that amount of state funds was released to the candidate to spend on their campaign that the rules ought to be followed.”

Walker said she chose not to use public campaign financing because she didn’t think it was the best use of state dollars in the tough financial times West Virginia is facing, but had she won her lawsuits, lawsuits that worked their way up to the state Supreme Court, Walker would’ve asked the state to pay her legal fees.

“I felt like in our appeal, we were doing in part what the job of the State Election Commission should have been,” Walker said. “The State Election Commission has the job to certify the candidate as meeting all of the requirements of the statute and our position was the state election commission didn’t correctly authorize that discretion.”

Beth Walker speaking with Del. Kayla Kessinger during her Mt. Hope campaign stop.

If she were a legislator, Walker said, she would revisit the program given the financial hardships in the state, but as a Justice, she won’t have any say on future rewrites to the law.

Of the five candidates running for the one open seat on the high court, Walker has the longest list of endorsements. Conservative organizations like the West Virginia Business and Industry Council and West Virginia Chamber of Commerce are backing her, as well as Republican lawmakers like Senator Shelley Moore Capito, and third party groups have recently backed Walker as well, spending PAC money on attack ads focused on two of her opponents.

Walker said she can and will separate herself from these special interests as a member of the court and isn’t afraid to recuse herself from cases that may appear to have personal conflicts.

Spending in 2004 Race Pushes Benjamin to Use Public Financing

Brent Benjamin was first elected to the West Virginia Supreme Court in 2004 during a race that became known for the influence of outside spending.

At the time, Massey Energy CEO Don Blankenship funneled big bucks into the race attacking Benjamin’s opponent, incumbent Justice Warren McGraw, and now Benjamin, the conservative lawyer turned centrist judge, is attempting to move past his former political ties in 2016’s nonpartisan race.

“In 2004, we saw the effect of independent groups out there, independent of the candidates spending lots of money,” Benjamin said when asked about the Blankenship backed attack ads.

“Candidates didn’t have any control over that, neither myself nor Warren McGraw, and it dwarfed the message that the candidates could get out,” he said. “That’s not a good thing.”

That outside spending is a big reason Benjamin said he chose to participate in the state’s public campaign financing system, available only to Supreme Court candidates.

“It is the single best way to help the public, or reassure the public that there are no undo influences from anybody outside the state or any PACs or groups out there that have agendas in the court system,” Benjamin said of the program.

He and fellow candidate Bill Wooten are the only two of five candidates for the high court that chose to participate in the program this year, and both faced a legal challenge by opponent Beth Walker before receiving the funds.

In a lawsuit, Walker claimed both candidates missed filing deadlines and should be disqualified from the program, despite a State Election Commission decision in their favor. The West Virginia Supreme Court, made up of a panel of appointed circuit court judges, ruled in Benjamin and Wooten’s favor, giving them $500,000 each to fund their campaigns.

Still, Benjamin’s opponents have openly criticized him for his use of the public funds during a tough financial time for the state.

“First of all, that’s a policy decision and if you’re going to be a judge you should leave the policy decisions to the Legislature,” Benjamin said of the program itself. “The Legislature listened to the people and the people told them, this is the program we want. It’s that important.”

Benjamin also said the funds are not taken from the general revenue budget, but come from special accounts specifically created for the purpose of the program.

Supreme Court Justice Brent Benjamin participated on a 2015 panel discussing the state’s substance abuse epidemic.

But in 2016, the cycle of high levels of outside spending seen in previous years is repeating itself. The latest campaign finance filings show independent groups have spent $1.8 million on the Supreme Court race in West Virginia, some $200,000 more than the five candidates themselves.

To overcome these outsider political messages, Benjamin is relying on his work with the state’s drug courts, diversionary programs that help addicts get treatment instead of going to prison.

Benjamin has played a major role in the creation of adult, juvenile and veteran court systems. So far, he said 1,400 West Virginians have graduated from the programs.

“Every statistic is a human being in West Virginia and we have found that the drug problem affects every level of our society and it’s really hurting our state,” he said. “These are people who are being moms and dads again, they’re being sons and daughters again and that’s such a wonderful statistic and I’m just so pleased I’ve been able to be a part of that.”

This year, judicial officer, including Supreme Court candidates, are being elected on a nonpartisan basis for the first time. This is also the first time judges will be elected during the May 10 primary.

First-Time Candidate, King Runs for W.Va. Supreme Court

Wayne King is an attorney from Clay County and one of five candidates running for a seat on the state’s Supreme Court of Appeals. King is known for being outspoken on many issues, but perhaps most for his opposition to public campaign financing.

Wayne King grew up in Belle, West Virginia, but has lived in Clay for the last 45 years. At age 71, he’s still working as a full-time attorney since graduating from West Virginia University College of Law in 1971. Now, he’s running for the West Virginia Supreme Court. King says he’s been contemplating a run for the last twelve years.

“I noted more of a sense of arrogance in the judiciary,” King said, “and I believe that, in discussing with my wife, I decided that I would try to tell my story being a down at home, commonsense, country lawyer and run for the Supreme Court.”

A first-time candidate who has only raised around $200 in donations, King says those things haven’t stopped him from trying.

“It’s better to try to do something and give it your best shot, then wake up five years from now and say, why didn’t I do it?”

King has been a prosecuting attorney and a family law master and has a practice currently focused on court appointed work, which he says gives him a wide range of experience.

“It gives me a chance to be in court and be on my feet all the time, and it’s a challenge to think and go head-to-head with the best lawyers in West Virginia and also to try to match wits with very intelligence and well-trained judges,” he said.

Much of King’s time is spent representing children in abuse or neglect cases. He says this work is important to him, because he’s an advocate for children and it’s an area his family is involved in on a personal level.

“There’s hundreds and thousands of kids in West Virginia that need stability in their home life,” King noted, “and course, my daughter was a foster parent out in California for some ten years, and actually fostered about fifteen children until she finally was able to adopt a young baby named Tabitha, that’s our granddaughter, and so just seeing the opportunity to help not only children, but also represent fathers and mothers in those cases certainly is challenging.”

King has often cited the fact that he’s received more ethics complaints than all his opponents combined. But King says that’s a strength – it means when it comes to defending his client or being a prosecutor, he won’t back off.

“I’m the lawyer you want to take into court with you, because I’ll give it my best shot,” he said, “Sometimes people don’t like that. I do have ethics complaints, I’m not afraid to hide ‘em. I was censored once and suspended once, but I think they were wrong.”

This year’s Supreme Court race for the first time is non-partisan. King says it’s not a bad idea but needs tweaking because the state could end up with a Justice who received less than 50 percent of the vote.

“That’s just not right,” King explained, “A justice to the Supreme Court should be elected by at least a majority of the people, and if no one gets the majority in the primary, the top two should run off. In addition, if we’re going to start public financing and non-partisan things, then possibly Supreme Court justices should only be able to serve one term.”

The candidate has also been outspoken on his stance against the public campaign financing system. Two of King’s opponents are running their campaign on public dollars.

“I just think it’s an embarrassment to ask the average citizens of West Virginia in these tough economic times to take on that burden,” he said, “I also have said that I would not, when elected, during the twelve years that I serve, turn in any vouchers for costs. I think that I can pay my own way as justice of the Supreme Court and not accept any reimbursement for any expenses I incur.”

King has loaned around $13,000 of his own money to his campaign. He says he thinks voters will favor him over the other candidates because he’s real.

“I feel that if people listen to me and meet me one-on-one, my friends tell people how I practice law and my background and how I treat people fairly,” King explained, “and easy to get along with outside the courtroom, not necessarily inside the courtroom, but just I feel that once those ideas and those thoughts go up and down the hollers here in West Virginia, the streets of the cities, and everything else that my name will be well-known, and I think I have a lot of friends anyway across the state of West Virginia, and we’ll just see what turns out.”

This year, West Virginia voters have only one chance to vote for a Supreme Court Justice and all other judicial officers and that’s during the state’s primary election. Early voting is underway and Primary Day is May 10.

Afer 32 Years of Service, McGraw Wants 12 More on High Court

Of all five of the candidates running for Supreme Court, only two have judicial experience. Current Justice Brent Benjamin is hoping to be re-elected to his seat, and Darrell McGraw, a member of the high court from 1976 to 1988, is trying to take it from him.

“My life has been a life dedicated to service,” McGraw said. “My calling to service is through the law and this is an opportunity for me to continue to serve the community that [and] to improve the quality of life for all of the people of West Virginia.”

His one 12-year term on the court was followed shortly after by the tenure he is most known for. McGraw spent two decades as West Virginias Attorney General- a post he lost to current Attorney General Patrick Morrisey during the 2012 election.

During his time as Attorney General, McGraw said there is one area of accomplishments he is most proud of, his work building the office’s Consumer Protection Division.

“Over a period of 20 years, we were able to return to the state and individual people in the state $2 billion,” he said.

Attorney General Morrisey regularly announces settlements with major companies for consumer protection lawsuits and those settlements typically bring millions of dollars back to the state’s coffers.

As recently as last week, Morrisey announced an $8 million settlement with a subsidiary of the financial firm Wells Fargo—a case that, like many others, was filed during the McGraw administration.

“I haven’t heard of any case from the Attorney General’s Office that was not initiated by my tenure in office and I haven’t heard of any program that is being prosecuted by the Attorney General’s Office that was not already highly developed,” McGraw said.

But it’s a brief filed during his time as Attorney General that is having an impact on the way McGraw is running his campaign today.

In 2012, McGraw intervened in a case challenging current Supreme Court Justice Allen Loughry’s use of the state’s public campaign financing program. The program is only available to Supreme Court candidates who have to meet a number of qualifying requirements before receiving half a million dollars in taxpayer money to pay for their race.

Supporters say public financing keeps politics out of the court system and prevents people from buying off judges to win cases.

In his brief, McGraw called the program unconstitutional. Although after the 2012 election lawmakers made some changes to the program, McGraw still turned down the opportunity to participate in the 2016 race.

“If I had availed myself of that system, I would have certainly been branded right away a hypocrite,” McGraw said.

But in addition to the attacks that could have come from his fellow candidates, McGraw said he also strongly believes there are better uses for taxpayer dollars in such trying financial times.

McGraw was also uncertain about another new factor in this year’s race—the change to nonpartisan elections of judges.

“I think that the notion of nonpartisanship in an election, which is a good theoretical notion, actually deprives people of words that define philosophies,” he said.

“Association with a group of people who express a particular point of view is a good thing and it gives people voice so to that degree it probably deprives people of definition when they go in to vote for a particular candidate.”

Still, when asked to describe his own personal philosophy, McGraw called himself a progressive whose views are shaped by his religious upbringing in southern West Virginia.

“My future performance as a Justice on the West Virginia Supreme Court is to a considerable degree predictable by my past record,” McGaw said, “and I strive to maintain my faith with the voters and to serve the people of West Virginia as my calling in the law.”

Early voting is currently taking place in county courthouses across the state. May 10 is Primary Day and the only time West Virginians can cast ballots in judicial elections at all levels.