The Register-Herald - "GOP candidate asserts state Supreme Court race is crucial"

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By Mannix Porterfield

It's tough to rouse the passion of West Virginia voters in a Supreme Court race. Candidates for that job are seldom swirling in controversy, and under the canon of ethics, there are limits as to what they may discuss while seeking votes. Specific cases, generally, are taboo for campaign talks. And with rare exception, the robes are held by the Democrats.

Brent Benjamin's success in upending Democratic Justice Warren McGraw was a rare instance in which a Supreme Court contest almost took center stage and that a Republican found a seat on the bench. Beth Walker is eyeing a repeat performance in 2008.

And in her estimation, "I think the Supreme Court is one of the most, if not the most important, elections in 2008."

So far, she's the only Republican on the stump, and already she is drawing some lines around potential Democratic rivals with talk about the court being one-sided, leaning toward plaintiffs in civil action cases, or tending to favor convicted criminals in appeals.

"I don't think our Supreme Court is always playing the role I think it was intended to play, which is an independent branch of government that decides cases based on the law and the constitution, and not based on a preconceived agenda," she told The Register-Herald in an interview after announcing her candidacy.
Just what is this agenda?

"That's the point," she said. "There's not a particular agenda I'm thinking of, but it appears to me that certainly the perception is and I think the fact is, that not every decision has been strictly based upon the law," the Charleston attorney said.

Over the years, she said, the court has been inclined to side with a litigant in cases in which the justices had an interest in, rather than merely viewing cases from the vantage of the Constitution, she says. West Virginia is among a few states that continue to elect Supreme Court jurists in partisan elections.

"I think that sometimes affects, or makes the court, more political than I think it ought to be," says Walker, who favors nonpartisan election of all judges across the state.

A partner in the Charleston law firm of Bowles, Rice, McDavid, Graff & Love, the candidate is a graduate of Ohio State University's law school. As an attorney, her specialty is labor and employment law. At times, she leads seminars and publishes articles targeting employers, spanning such topics as sexual harassment, union-free strategies, wage and hour law, discipline and discharge of employees, and hiring practices.

So far, the race has attracted four Democrats: Justice Elliott Maynard of Williamson, former Justice Margaret Workman and attorney Michael Allen, both of Charleston, and West Virginia University law professor Robert Bastress Jr.

If the bench seems to lean leftward in civil cases, is the same true when criminal matters are on the docket?

"There have certainly been some notable cases, and of course, one of them was discussed in the 2004 election when it called into question, in my mind, whether the actual law was being applied, or perhaps again, a policy of someone trying to make a political point as opposed to making a fair and well reasoned decision," she said.

Her allusion was to the Tony Arbaugh matter. Arbaugh was a convicted child rapist set free by the court in a rehabilitation plan that called for a job at a parochial school in Wheeling. His case became a heated issue in the Benjamin-McGraw battle.

Which leads to a question: Will the Eddie Mullens case evolve into a political football next year? Mullens' drug-dealing conviction was reversed by the court on grounds police conducted an unreasonable search. That led to a special legislative session this year in which lawmakers revised the wired-for-sound statute so that police could get court permission in all 55 counties to conduct undercover buys, or even make them in emergencies provided such orders are secured within 72 hours of a bust.

Walker refused to go there, saying, "I'm not going to comment on a particular case." For now, she is focusing on the impact court rulings have on the business community.

"West Virginia deserves a fair and impartial court," she says. "I'm tired of our courts not giving both plaintiffs and defendants a fair shake. It's that simple. When the judicial system is fair and impartial, I think that it helps everyone."

A few years ago, a special interest group blistered the judicial system in West Virginia, calling this state a "hellhole."

"I'm sort of focusing on the fact that it can be better," Walker said, without a direct comment on that term.

"And regardless of where we are on lists and all of that, that it can improve if we pay attention to what's going on at the Supreme Court. What I can speak of is what I've seen as a lawyer. And I have spoken to companies who have gotten into West Virginia and made the decision to leave because of, among other things, the court system."

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