Even as many eyes are trained on Washington these days, we in West Virginia are going through our own supreme court battle. The one in Washington, over U.S. Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, has degenerated into a vicious confrontation that often seems more a political duel than a search for the truth.

We cannot allow that to happen in West Virginia. Already, there have been claims politics is behind the whole situation. They come primarily from former state high court Justice Robin Davis, who quit her post after the House of Delegates adopted articles of impeachment against her.

We have an important advantage over U.S. senators trying to resolve the Kavanaugh situation, however. There, the nominee has been accused of sexual misconduct when he was 17 years of age. Given the current state of evidence, it will be virtually impossible to prove that occurred or did not happen. It is a classic he said, she said dilemma.

Specific allegations have been made against Davis and three sitting justices — Allen Loughry, Elizabeth Walker and Margaret Workman. The nature of accusations varies, justice by justice. Those against Loughry clearly can be proven or disproven. The same can be said for some against Davis and Workman.

Some, including the single article of impeachment against Walker, may be open to debate. She and the other three are accused of failing to put in place policies to avoid waste and fraud at the state Supreme Court.

For the most part, however, the justices’ cases can be resolved by looking at hard facts, not mere allegations.

It will be up to the state Senate to decide whether the four are guilty of the articles of impeachment against them. All four are scheduled for Senate trials next month. Walker’s is to begin Monday.

There has been much courtroom maneuvering in advance of the trials. No one can say how it will end.

It would appear that the ball is in the hands of state senators and acting state Chief Justice Paul Farrell, who will preside over the trials.

Critics of the Kavanaugh fiasco are right to warn its ramifications may be harmful. Questions have been raised about whether qualifications of nominees to the highest court in the land outweigh the politics of who they — and the presidents who recommend them — are. Here in the Mountain State, we cannot allow that to happen.

State senators and Farrell simply must ensure that Davis, Loughry, Walker and Workman receive fair trails. In the end, West Virginians — or at least, the overwhelming majority of us — must be convinced the cases were handled according to whether the justices committed the acts of which they are accused, or did not.

In other words, it needs to be unequivocally clear that here, politics does not override justice.