L-R: West Virginia justices Allen H. Loughry II, Elizabeth D. Walker, Robin Jean Davis and Margaret Workman.

West Virginia's highest court has seen better days.

State lawmakers voted Monday to impeach all four of West Virginia Supreme Court justices, training the largest number of impeachment articles on former Chief Justice Allen Loughry II, who's currently suspended and facing a 23-count federal indictment amid accusations of wasteful spending on office renovations and other alleged misdeeds.

Monday's impeachment votes impact the entire current slate of Supreme Court justices; typically the West Virginia high court has five justices, but one seat has been vacant since July, when former Justice Menis Ketchum announced his retirement. In the wake of Monday's action, another justice, Robin Jean Davis, announced Tuesday morning that she'll retire from the bench.

The West Virginia House of Delegates voted on Monday to adopt eight articles of impeachment targeting Loughry, while three other justices were ensnared in at least one of 11 articles that passed on Monday, according to legislative records.

The lawmakers impeached Loughry individually for “unnecessary and lavish spending” while putting more than $363,000 toward renovating his office, an amount that included a nearly $32,000 sofa and the price of installing a custom medallion in the floor. Another article of impeachment criticized Loughry for having an antique desk removed from a state building to his home office.

Davis, meanwhile, was impeached over some $500,000 she spent in office renovations, while Margaret Workman, currently serving as chief justice in light of Loughry's suspension, was impeached because lawmakers believed she authorized overly generous salaries to judges in the state court system who had taken senior status.

The impeachment of the final justice, Elizabeth “Beth” Walker, came when the West Virginia delegates approved an article that targeted all four justices for abusing their authority by failing to control expenses, and falling short in their oversight of policies related to working lunches and the personal use of state computers and vehicles.

In a statement Tuesday explaining her reasons for stepping down, Davis described the impeachment votes as a move by a Republican majority that “ignored the will of the people who elected the justices” and “erased the lines of separation between the branches of government.”

Monday's votes proceeded largely along party lines, with most Republican delegates in the House favoring impeachment. Some Democratic lawmakers did, however, also vote in favor of impeachment. The justices hail from both parties; two are Democrats and two are Republicans.

Davis ended her statement with a plea to West Virginia citizens to watch the “legislative process very carefully” and to go vote in November.

“I feel profound grief for the state of West Virginia given the current state of affairs. What we are witnessing is a disaster for the rule of law, the foundation of our state, and indeed, our very society,” Davis said. “For when a legislative body attempts to dismantle a separate branch of government, the immediate effects, as well as the precedent it sets for the future, can only be termed disastrous.”

The impeachment votes mark just the latest development in what has been a tumultuous year for the West Virginia high court, as it grapples with the fallout of issues described in 2017 by a local news investigation that looked into the justices' high spending.

Loughry, who once wrote a book about the history of political corruption in West Virginia, has been at the center of the controversy, with both federal prosecutors and a state judicial disciplinary commission having launched actions against him.

The commission lodged a statement of claims against the former chief justice early in June, finding probable cause that he violated multiple judicial and professional conduct rules. He was suspended from the bench without pay during the judicial disciplinary case, according to the West Virginia Supreme Court.

Meanwhile, a federal criminal indictment, first made public in June and superseded in July, presents 23 counts of alleged misdeeds on Loughry's part.

As ALM reported in June, prosecutors accused him of misusing a government vehicle for personal trips and improperly taking a historically significant desk from a government building to his home office. The furniture was designed by Cass Gilbert, a late-1800s and early-1900s architect who designed New York City's Woolworth Building and a number of U.S. state capitol buildings, including West Virginia's. Loughry's indictment accuses the judge of having a Gilbert desk removed from the state capitol building to his private residence for use in a home office.

Loughry's criminal charges carry potential penalties of up to 405 years in prison and a $5.75 million fine, according to the office of West Virginia U.S. Attorney Mike Stuart.

At the end of July, Stuart's office also announced a criminal charge against Ketchum, who by that point had already stepped down from the West Virginia high court and left his seat on the bench vacant. Federal prosecutors accused him of repeatedly using a state-owned vehicle and gas credit card to travel from his home to a private golf club in the neighboring state of Virginia.

Ketchum agreed to plead guilty to one count of wire fraud.