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CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) — Tim Armstead, a West Virginia Supreme Court docket justice who additionally served as Republican speaker of the Home of Delegates throughout a 20-year legislative profession, died Tuesday, the court docket introduced. He was 60.
Armstead died following a quick hospitalization, the court docket mentioned in a press release with out elaborating.
Armstead was appointed to the Supreme Court docket in 2018 to fill a emptiness by the retirement of Justice Menis Ketchum. Armstead gained a particular election later that yr to serve the rest of Ketchum’s time period. Ketchum later was sentenced in federal court docket to probation on a felony fraud depend associated to his private use of a state automobile and fuel gasoline card.
Armstead then was elected to a full 12-year time period on the court docket in 2020. He served because the court docket’s rotating chief justice in 2020 and 2024.
In a press release, Republican Gov. Patrick Morrisey mentioned Armstead was “a very good and respectable man who all the time tried to set the proper moral tone in all of his actions.”
Born in Charleston, Armstead graduated from the College of Charleston and earned a legislation diploma from West Virginia College. He served on the staffs of U.S. District Decide David Faber and Govs. Arch A. Moore Jr. and Cecil Underwood. Underwood appointed Armstead to a vacant seat on the Home of Delegates in 1998 and he was elected later that yr. He was named Home speaker in 2015.
Republican Delegate Roger Hanshaw changed Armstead as Home speaker and stays within the place.
“West Virginia misplaced a really particular individual right this moment, and I misplaced one other fantastic buddy,” Hanshaw mentioned. “I’ll miss the clever counsel he usually gave me in instances of powerful choices.”
When he ran for the 12-year Supreme Court docket seat in 2020, Armstead mentioned the court docket had develop into extra open and clear following a 2018 impeachment scandal and that restoring confidence within the court docket amongst residents was a precedence.
Home lawmakers impeached a number of justices over questions involving greater than $3 million in renovations to the justices’ places of work — included one justice’s $32,000 blue suede sofa —and expanded to broader accusations of corruption, incompetence and neglect of obligation. The scandal prompted a unprecedented transfer by one department of presidency to basically fireplace one other.
However 5 appearing justices later derailed the impeachment trials. In 2019 the U.S. Supreme Court docket left that call in place.
Armstead had recused himself from the 2018 Home debate over the impeachment articles as a result of he had expressed curiosity within the court docket, whose elections grew to become nonpartisan in 2016.
Final yr Armstead appointed an advisory committee to suggest revisions to the state Code of Judicial Conduct. The committee will situation its suggestions to the Supreme Court docket for evaluate later this yr.
Present Chief Justice Invoice Wooton mentioned Armstead’s colleagues “seemed to Tim’s instance on thorny moral points. Likewise, his data of state funds has been a useful useful resource to the West Virginia judicial system.”
Armstead is survived by his spouse, Anna, a daughter and two grandchildren.
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