CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) — A former West Virginia Supreme Court justice who served a two-year sentence in a corruption case lost his bid last Tuesday to receive a hearing to examine a juror’s use of social media during his trial.
The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Virginia, voted 6-6 in affirming a three-judge panel’s decision to deny ex-Justice Allen Loughry an evidentiary hearing on his claim that the juror showed bias.
In a one-sentence, unsigned opinion, the full court wrote, “The judgment of the district court is affirmed by an equally divided court.” Three judges did not participate in the decision.
U.S. District Judge John T. Copenhaver Jr. had denied Loughry’s bid for the hearing, ruling in the week prior to Loughry’s 2019 sentencing that “there is no evidence or allegation that Juror A posted anything related to the case” on social media during Loughry’s trial in October 2018.
Copenhaver had instructed jurors to stay off social media or the internet to obtain information on the case or communicate with anyone about the case, and “Juror A has not been shown to have violated that admonition,” the judge wrote in February 2019.
Loughry, who had a $32,000 blue suede couch in his office and was at the center of an impeachment and corruption scandal, was found guilty of 11 of 22 charges for using his job for his own benefit and lying to investigators. Most of the charges involved mail and wire fraud involving his personal use of state cars and fuel cards. Copenhaver threw out a witness tampering conviction.
Loughry was released from federal prison in December.
State lawmakers and others had said public trust in the state’s court system was broken by the actions of Loughry and others.
Loughry and justices Margaret Workman, Robin Davis and Beth Walker were impeached in 2018 over questions involving the lavish office renovations that evolved into accusations of corruption, incompetence and neglect of duty. Some of the justices were accused of abusing their authority by failing to rein in excessive spending.
A week later a temporary panel of justices ruled the impeachment efforts violated the separation-of-powers doctrine and that the Legislature lacked jurisdiction to pursue the trials. The process was officially derailed when the presiding judge didn’t show up to Workman’s Senate trial because of the decision.
Davis and Justice Menis Ketchum retired in 2018 and Workman retired last year. Ketchum pleaded guilty in federal court to a felony fraud count related to his personal use of a state vehicle and gas fuel card. He was sentenced to three years of probation.
State Supreme Court spokeswoman Jennifer Bundy said the court’s current justices had no comment on the appeals court’s ruling.
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