Karlin Calling…With Al Karlin’s ascent as new head of the state association of plaintiffs lawyers, look for a more communicative leadership style in the executive suite of the West Virginia personal injury bar. Karlin, you recall, was among the countless contacts Supreme Court Justice Larry Starcher made from his state-issued cell phone that January weekend before old vaction photos of the Chief Justice mysteriously surfaced. Karlin’s connections even extend to the law school faculty of West Virginia University, evidenced by e-mail exchanges he had with twice-failed, ethically challenged high court candidate Bob Bastress about the professor’s campaign - political communication from the school’s computer system. Judged by the company you keep?

One cannot help but marvel over how a change of seasons can change one’s perspective on photography. Justice Larry Starcher’s for instance.

In January, Starcher was so jacked about vacation pictures of the chief justice, he burned the phone lines on his state-issued cell phone in chats with High Court candidate Menis Ketchum and the incoming honcho of the state’s personal injury bar.

Now, according to the Gazette’s Phil Kabler, Starcher is suddenly camera shy, ducking the annual group photo of the tribunal. A memo Starcher authored, perhaps on the same computer in which he exchanged e-mails with another Supreme Court candidate, explains his “rationale” for the cop out: a rationale that since he was snubbed for the Chief Justice title last year, he was snubbing back.

Even Kabler raised eyebrows over Starcher’s “holding a grudge” and the weirdly-composed third-person point-of-view of the memo. In the end, this may have been Larry’s immature attempt to participate in Justice Robin Davis’ pet project: Year of the Child.

West Virginia got another stark reminder of why our state’s legal climate is routinely ranked the worst in the nation. Last week, the State Supreme Court refused to hear appeals of two of the largest verdicts in the entire nation last year, totaling more than $664 million in damages. As a result of the Supreme Court’s actions, natural gas company Chesapeake Energy has halted construction on its proposed Charleston-based headquarters, choosing instead to invest its $35 million elsewhere.

Once again, our state finds itself outside the legal mainstream. West Virginia is one of only two states in the nation that doesn’t provide civil litigants with an automatic right of appeal of some sort. Our state’s lack of an intermediate appellate court also places West Virginia in the minority. In most instances, circuit judges essentially serve as the court of last resort for West Virginia litigants. That’s a scary proposition considering the recent election of Warren McGraw to the Wyoming County Circuit Court.

How many jobs must our state lose before our political leaders decide to actually do something about our broken court system? All West Virginians deserve the right to be heard. Until we provide civil litigants with some sort of automatic right of appeal, job providers will continue to take their jobs to states that emphasize fairness, and not legal fees for personal injury lawyers.

Supreme Court candidate Menis Ketchum is trying to be all things to all people. The personal injury lawyer says one thing to some people, and the exact opposite to others. Now, it looks like Ketchum’s tall tales are catching up to him. West Virginia Public Broadcasting has issued a scathing report on how several of Ketchum’s recent statements are turning out to be untrue. It looks like Ketchum hasn’t been honest about his record, making trumped up claims about his experience. Perhaps Menis isn’t being up-front about his record because he fears voters won’t support a personal injury lawyer who has made a living filing lawsuits against local businesses, doctors and everyday citizens involved in car accidents.

Click here to check out West Virginia Public Broadcasting’s full report.

Good for Charleston’s WCHS-TV 8/Fox 11 newsman Kennie Bass. In this past weekend’s broadcast Associated Press debate, he asked state Supreme Court candidate Menis Ketchum to explain how the Huntington personal injury lawyer’s close friendship with Justice Starcher, before whom Ketchum’s firm has brought cases, is any different than Justice Maynard’s friendship since boyhood with Massey Energy’s chief executive officer.

Ketchum’s painful grimace at the question preceded his plea to focus on “the issues” in the race, the courtroom car crash king obviously distracted by official phone records showing how he and Starcher seemed to be feverishly discussing anything but the issues in the days preceding release of photos used to malign Maynard.

It’s just like how Ketchum told the West Virginia State Medical Association he is “conservative,” but told the West Virginia Record he is “moderate.”

Sorry Menis. You can’t have your cake and eat it too.

Nothing invites voter confidence like a judicial candidate who doesn’t know the law. When the Charleston Daily Mail recently exposed the Menis Ketchum Supreme Court campaign for running television ads featuring the personal injury lawyer-turned-High-Court-wannabe with uniformed police officers, a violation of state law, Ketchum told reporter Justin Anderson “I didn’t know it” and pretty much blamed the damned law librarian.

According to Anderson, Ketchum said “the law isn’t in the elections section of state code, but is in a set of laws governing city police forces.”

Shouldn’t a candidate for the state’s highest court know the law? Now we have two Supreme Court candidates in the May 13 Democratic primary who have been slapped on the writ for advertising infractions: Ketchum for using police officers as “pawns,” in the words of one longtime political observer; and Margaret Workman, who was advised by the State Bar not to continue advertising for her law practice with photos of her in a judge’s robe.

Click here to read the full Daily Mail story.

This morning, the Charleston Gazette clearly mischaracterized the circumstances surrounding the 2004 state Supreme Court election. In its editorial on ugly campaigning, the Gazette attempted to downplay the fact that former Supreme Court Justice Warren McGraw voted for a plan which would have released a convicted sex offender and placed him to work in a local high school. A court of law later found the telivision advertisements that the Gazette complains of to be factually true.

Click here to read the opinion for yourself!

Also, check out Justice Robin Davis’ critical dissent in the case.

There’s been a lot of talk in the news lately about judicial recusal. We thought a couple of additional examples are worth mentioning. First, check out the following video footage of Justice Larry Starcher making disparaging remarks about the CEO of a company whose case is currently pending before the court.

In light of his remarks, do you think Justice Starcher should recuse himself from any case involving Massey Energy?

Also check out the following Daily Mail editorial, which details former Justice Warren McGraw’s refusal to recuse himself from a case involving his brother.

Charleston Daily Mail
November 21, 2001, Wednesday

McGraws: A justice should not be judge of his brother’s bid for power

West Virginia suffers from too many McGraws. Darrell McGraw is the state’s attorney general. Warren McGraw is the chief justice of the state Supreme Court.

Warren should step aside in a case that Darrell has brought before the Supreme Court.

Having an attorney general and a justice as brothers is a bad idea. In 1999, when his brother took office, Darrell told The Associated Press that Warren could sit in most cases that the attorney general’s office brings to the high court.

“The bottom line is: anything involving me personally, he should not sit on,” Darrell said. “Anything that’s considered in the state’s interest, he should surely sit on or the people would be deprived of the benefit of their vote.”

Well, this time it is personal. This time, Warren should sit it out.

Darrell would like to expand the powers of the attorney general so that every lawyer in state government falls under his purview.

This ironically is at odds with a decision that Darrell wrote when he was on the Supreme Court in which he defended then-Secretary of State A. James Manchin’s right to be defended by a lawyer independent of the attorney general’s office.

“To accord the attorney general the power he claims would leave all branches and agencies of government deprived of access to the court except by his grace and with his consent,” Darrell wrote for the court in 1982.

Given that Darrell now seeks to deprive other elected officials “access to the court except by his grace and with his consent,” the state’s highest court must operate on its best behavior. Having his brother help decide whether he should gain such extraordinary powers is more than the public should bear.

When Darrell was on the high court, he abused his power in many ways, including trying to get time as a student janitor in college counted toward a judicial pension. Voters had enough and tossed him out. Voters expect more from a Supreme Court justice.

Brother Warren should keep that in mind and remove himself posthaste from this case.

Despite much public criticism, Justice Warren McGraw did not step down in the case involving his brother, Darrell.