Margaret Lee Workman (born May 22, 1947) is an American lawyer and a former justice of the Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia.
[2] She later returned to West Virginia to work with Professor (later Justice) Franklin D. Cleckley in his private practice of law.
[4][3] In 1981, she was appointed a circuit judge by Governor Jay Rockefeller in Kanawha County, West Virginia, to fill a vacancy.
[6] Following a series of controversies involving excessive spending, the West Virginia House Judiciary Committee voted to recommend that Workman and the three remaining justices be impeached on August 7, 2018 "for maladministration, corruption, incompetency, neglect of duty, and certain high crimes and misdemeanors".
[7] Based on the committee recommendation, Workman was impeached by the full West Virginia House of Delegates on August 13, 2018.
[11] In 1993, Workman received the West Virginia Prosecuting Attorneys Association's Excellence in Criminal Justice Award.
However, the relatively nonpartisan nature of judicial races and the victory of Brent Benjamin to the Supreme Court in 2004 as a Republican, made the November general election competitive.
Nevertheless, Huntington trial attorney Ketchum and former Justice Workman beat out Beth Walker for seats on the Court.
Like most judges I don't reward my friends, or punish my enemies from the bench.” Despite outraising his competitors, fallout from the incident aided former Justice Workman and Huntington attorney Menis Ketchum to win the Democratic nominations for two seats in the November general election.
[16] 2002: Workman ran for the Democratic nomination to West Virginia's 2nd congressional district, a seat won by Republican Shelley Moore Capito in 2000.
Fall 1988: Workman and Miller faced Republican nominees former House Delegate and West Virginia Public Service Commissioner Charlotte Lane and attorney Jeniver Jones in the November general election.
Despite Republicans winning their third straight U.S. presidential election at the federal level, Lane and Jones faced an uphill battle to beat Workman and Miller in the then-solidly Democratic state.
Workman joined fellow attorneys Fred Fox and John Hey as challengers to incumbent Justices Darrell McGraw and Thomas Miller.
[21] McGraw later returned to elected office as West Virginia Attorney General in 1996, a position he held until his defeat in 2012.