Yes, and I have no issue with judges or lawyers being held to higher standards of compliance with the law than the rest of us, since they’re more conscious of it and do have a higher responsibility of upholding the integrity of the law. Lawyers do get suspended or disbarred for infractions that most of us wouldn’t even get noticed for. Judges need to be even more conscious of being and appearing to have complete integrity. It isn’t treating unfairly to charge this guy and end his career, it’s recognizing his unique status and responsibilities that he’s failed to live up to.
This seems like a collateral source argument. Suppose you agree to come down here and give a seminar on the differences and similarities between Canadian and U.S. law. As part of the agreement, I have calculated your mileage from here to there and agree to pay you $x per mile and calculate a total rate.
If your buddy tags along with you, pays for gas, and you take his car (say you are going to stay with him a few extra days for a personal vacation) is it wrong for you to accept my money? Could I argue that I don’t owe you anything for mileage since you weren’t paying?
I would think not. I should not benefit just because you had the good fortune of having a free ride.
I would support impeachment and removal from office if the charges turn out to be true. Depending on the evidence presented or any mitigating factors, I could see a suspension from office.
I think criminal charges, state or especially federal, are simply too much given the socially acceptable nature of padding expense reports. And please don’t think I pad expense reports or believe that it should be socially acceptable. But it happens, and when it is found out, the worst thing that happens is an employee gets fired and/or is made to pay back his ill-gotten gains.
What adds another twist is that Loughry himself went to the federal authorities and requested that they investigate the Court’s practices. That’s not something one typically does when he has his hand in the till. They investigated and landed on him. The AUSA when asked if charges would be forthcoming for other members of the Court, he said “No comment.”
Didn’t this guy learn in law school, or continuing education, or at least in his bar admittance ceremony, that the requirements to conduct oneself within the law are *higher *for Officers of the Court, who are sworn to uphold it? What is “socially acceptable” for the rabble is irrelevant.
You don’t think that padding expense reports should be socially acceptable, but you’re upset when it turns out that it isn’t socially accepted?
I’m sure he did. But the price for being successful in one’s career cannot be that he goes to prison when he fucks up but if he stayed a janitor nobody would care. Talented people will stop serving in public office.
It remains just as socially accepted as it was two days ago. Al, the lawnmower guy has not been indicted on federal charges that I have seen. Only when it is a higher up do we get all Foghorn Leghorn about it. (Well, I say, I say, I do declare, such a thing is disgraceful, I say.) 
Only when it’s a higher-up do we even notice it. But if for some reason Al the Lawnmower got noticed, he’d probably have it just as bad as this judge.
For a *legal *career, yes, it can, and often has, and should.
Legal ethics rules have been in place for a long, long time. Have they kept out more dishonest people than honest ones?
I disagree with the premise of the argument that if someone in a lower status job did this it wouldn’t be an issue.
If an employer comes to the police with evidence that an employee has been making claims for expenses that the employee never actually paid, I would think the police would investigate.
And they should. There’s no difference between an employee who steals $500 from the till and the employee who submits false claims to be paid $500 by the employer.
Nice story, but that is not what happened. A more appropriate analogy would be that:
- you sent your employee to a conference
- you provided that employee with the vehicle, fuel, parking, etc. to make the trip
- that employee then submitted an expense reimbursement request to you for mileage
It’s double dipping and it’s wrong. If it happens once it could be a mistake, multiple times indicates intentionality.
That’s not at all what happened. Loughry attended a conference in Washington D.C. sponsored by a university (I forget which one) and was a speaker. He used a government car and paid for gas with a government credit card.
As part of the agreement to speak at the university, it offered to pay him mileage to drive there and back, which he accepted.
Arguably (and I’ll admit pretty thinly argued) one could say that was WV Supreme Court business because, hey, a poor state like us gets national exposure by having one of its Justices speak in Washington, D.C.
But he took approximately $200 in mileage reimbursement. A guy that makes over a six figure salary is going to rip off the state and risk his freedom over $200? Isn’t it possible that he does what I do every day (and I’m not a Supreme Court Justice) that you look over the gigantic pile of shit that you have to sign, give it a cursory look, trusting that the office manager did her job and sign, sign, sign? If I carefully read everything I had to sign, I would do nothing but review documents and sign.
It’s more than plausible that these were mistakes, but it seems that because Loughry didn’t give anyone the benefit of the doubt, well, payback’s a bitch. That’s not the way to handle criminal prosecutions.
I could live with that. It seems proportional to the other workers you mention, who may get sanctioned or fired. I’m not really hung up on whether he goes through the criminal system or not. And I do agree that you should get a break for self-reporting.
That said, if you are correct about their motivations, wouldn’t it have made more sense not to get the law involved? If he is to be impeached, then wouldn’t that achieve their goals? If they just don’t like working with the guy, then getting rid of him makes more sense.
I do actually think he could have argued that it was a proper use of the car, but I would expect that he’d either need approval ahead of time, or have to compensate if approval was not granted later.
If a friend of mine drives me down so I’m not out of pocket, I have no basis to claim re-imbursement from the conference organisers. If I put in a claim, saying i paid the mileage when I didn’t, and asking to be re-paid, that’s fraud.
I never said he did it on purpose. I never said he was being fairly prosecuted. All I am saying is that his travel expense was covered by the government AND he accepted and kept mileage on top of it. That is wrong. It may have been a mistake or it may have been indicative of a pattern, I have no way to know. There are 2 things he could have done to be in the right:
- tell the host institution that his travel expense was covered, no need for mileage reimbursement; or
- take the mileage reimbursement and give it to his employer, who actually was “out” the expense.
And, by the way, if in my job I sign my name to a “gigantic pile of shit that you have to sign”, I’m held responsible for the consequences. Doesn’t matter if I reviewed them thoroughly or not.
Argue that he is being overzealously prosecuted if you’d like, I don’t know enough about it to agree or rebut, but don’t claim he didn’t do anything wrong. That position is untenable and undermines any other point you try to make.
Yes, that’s the sort of thing an appeals judge does, carefully review papers before signing them.
If your defense of him is now that he was just crappy at his job, then you’re not really helping his case all that much, and it’s puzzling why you persist.
With respect to the charges of taking furniture home, that strikes me as a more ambiguous charge. If the rules for use of court equipment in the home office were not clear, then a defence of mistake might be there.
But claiming reimbursement for non-existent expenses, if proven, is pretty clear.
And a different Justice agrees to plead to a felony:
I don’t know what to make of this. I am absolutely against padding expenses or using company property as your own, but a federal felony? To me, that is a bit much.
Articles of Impeachment introduced against the ENTIRE WV SUPREME COURT!:
You’re not paying attention. They changed state code a couple of months ago to allow the governor to appoint any replacements rather than the old method of a special election. Redistricting challenges are expected and that would stack the court with five Republican appointments. This is a power grab by the GOP.
They tipped their hand when they gave Justice the power to appoint while Loughry was in trouble. Instead of saying he could a point a ‘justice’ they specifically worded it ‘justices’ meaning they were planning impeachment before anyone had even heard a word about the other justices.
Patterns count. If he had done any one of the things they say he did - just one, and only one time - then I’d feel inclined to treat it lightly and hope he had the good sense to stay out of trouble in the future. But he apparently did all of them. Multiple times. Concurrently, sequentially, etc etc. And he’s not a lawnmower repairman, he’s a JUDGE. Judges who break the law in multiple ways repetitively over a considerable period of time are between a rock and a hard place, because if they did it intentionally then they’re unfit on ethics grounds, and if they did it unintentionally they’re unfit on competency grounds. Having to answer the question “Are you unethical, or are you incompetent?”, knowing that the only other available honest answer would be “Both”, is never a good position to get into.