As we start the first impeachment trial in the West Virginia Senate this morning, I find it interesting the efforts some justices — one current and one former — of the state Supreme Court of Appeals are going to extract the court from the co-equal third branch of government it is supposed to be.

Compare the actions of Chief Justice Margaret Workman and former justice Robin Davis to that of Justice Beth Walker, who has remained humble and contrite even though she’s only been on the bench since January 2017.

Walker’s trial is up first today but expect it to go quick. The only article of impeachment that names her is the one that names all the members of the court, including Davis who resigned at some point the same day she was impeached Aug. 13, along with Workman and Justice Allen Loughry.

Of the 11 articles of impeachment adopted by the House of Delegates, Walker, Workman, Loughry and Davis were impeached together in an article charging the court with no accountability controls over its spending, and no policies for use of court property, vehicles, purchasing cards and bidding.

Attorneys for Walker have a good case to make since Walker has only been a justice for less than two years and hasn’t served her turn as a chief justice. It also takes a majority of the five justices to approve policy changes. Simply put, she wasn’t in any position to put a stop to the spending sprees, most of which occurred before she took office. Again, as a representative of the court she has been contrite, accepted responsibility and has worked to implement reforms.

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Workman, on the other hand, has been quite the opposite. Both Walker and Workman accepted a deal with the House impeachment managers where they accepted responsibility for office spending and for the charges in article 11. The Senate didn’t accept the deal because it involved passing a resolution of censure and they still hadn’t heard the evidence against the justices.

Fast forward two weeks later and it seems that while Walker was honest when signing the deal, Workman signed it with her fingers crossed behind her back. Workman’s petition before the state Supreme Court — a bench made up of appointed circuit court judges since all elected members of the court had to recuse themselves — is evidence she didn’t mean her earlier admission.

Workman is fighting in court to stop the impeachment trials, though her reasoning is confusing. Her petition calls the impeachment process unconstitutional. Yet, in an interview in WV MetroNews Talkline with host Hoppy Kercheval, Workman said she didn’t even understand the reason for which she was being impeached.

The articles of impeachment were pretty clear. In Workman’s case, she’s facing two articles of impeachment over the scheme to pay 10 senior status judges more than the statutory cap. Her attorneys argue that the Constitution gives them the authority to keep the courts open, and if that means paying a substitute judge more than even a sitting circuit judge makes, oh well.

The other article Workman is charged in I’ve already talked about above. She told Hoppy that the issues regarding policies, procedures and spending was the fault of former court administrator Steve Canterbury. She came very close to accusing Canterbury of skimming off the top of several of the contracts and change orders. I reached out to Canterbury and he understandably had no comment, as he is likely to be called in as a witness for several of these trials.

Workman would like you to think that the five justices simply didn’t have time to look at every invoice. She’s partially right, as the court also manages all circuit courts, family courts, drug courts, business courts, magistrate courts, and on and on. That’s a lot to manage and that’s why you have an administration office to see to the day-to-day issues. But to say that no justice had time to be involved in expenditures that directly benefited them, such as office renovations, travel, and catered lunches, I find that hard to swallow.

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And of course, former justice Robin Davis has filed a civil rights lawsuit in federal court against Gov. Justice and every legislator — including women lawmakers — who voted to impeach her in the House and to continue her trial in the Senate even though she resigned.

She alleges violations of her free speech rights if she is convicted by the Senate and prohibited from running for office in the future. She says her due process rights have been violated, even though she has every opportunity to defend herself and present witnesses and evidence at her impeachment trial Oct. 29. She even alleges gender bias since all the women on the Supreme Court were impeached. Never mind that Loughry is a guy and that had former justice Menis Ketchum not resigned, he’d likely be impeached, too.

On Friday, lawyers for Davis filed a motion with the Senate clerk’s office seeking a continuance of her impeachment trial to move it until after the Tuesday, Nov. 6 election. They argue that the senators — who serve as jurors in the impeachment trial process — will be too distracted, unable to campaign for re-election and unduly influenced to vote to convict to please voters.

In the same breath, her lawyers also argue “the fact that the impeachment trial is scheduled immediately prior to the November election heightens the likelihood that politics, rather than the law, will influence the outcome of her trial.”

Another case of lawyers not understanding that impeachment IS a political process.

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Some have described this as a constitutional crisis. It certainly is from the standpoint that you have one branch of government — the judiciary — that believes it is not a co-equal branch of government subject to checks and balances. The Supreme Court truly believes it to be on its own island.

The actions of Workman and Davis do much to tarnish a judiciary already suffering from low confidence from the people. Their anger is misplaced. Instead of going after the Legislature and the governor, they need to place the blame on Allen Loughry. Our state would not be in this crisis if his actions hadn’t cracked open the high court’s closet full of skeletons.

I fully expect the constitutional amendment placing the court’s budget oversight with the governor and the Legislature to pass. I also expect more legislation and amendments this winter to make the court system more accountable to the people.

My hope is whoever ends up on the court after November can truly undo the damage that has been done.

(Adams is the state government reporter for Ogden Newspapers. He can be contacted at sadams@newsandsentinel.com)