Real court, real people: W.Va. Supreme Court justices talk to Morgantown High class

Oct. 26—Steve Blinco didn't hold anything back in his cross-examination Tuesday morning.

In front of the room, John Hutchinson and Haley Bunn, both under personal oath to deliver information, shifted a bit.

Then they looked at each other, and laughed, at the seasonal line of questioning.

And then they — wait. That's getting ahead of the narrative.

The setting was Blinco's forensic and legal psychology class at Morgantown High School, which the teacher created a few years back to demystify the legal process.

Meanwhile, the aforementioned at the front of that classroom on this morning both embody and facilitate the legal process in the Mountain State.

Both wear the robes of the West Virginia Supreme Court, the state's highest court.

Hutchinson is chief justice.

Bunn, a former federal prosecutor, was appointed to the bench last spring by Gov. Jim Justice.

And both hit the road as much as they can, in a getting-acquainted tour known informally as, "Have Gavel, Will Travel."

The case of the battered office chair In today's divisive times, when the term, "transparency, " is bandied about in casual conversation, that's what the visits are about, the chief justice said.

"We want to make ourselves available, " Hutchinson said. "We want people to know who we are and what we do."

That includes budgets and dockets, he said — "We can even tell you how many pencils we buy, and yes, we still use pencils."

His reaction makes him a product of the times that brought him to the bench.

Like Bunn, he was appointed also.

Hutchinson got the nod in early 2018, following a tumultuous period that almost saw the previous court impeached, en masse, over evidence of living large at work.

There were incidents of lavish, expense account lunches and personal purchases using taxpayer money — not to mention those exorbitant (and now infamous) renovations to their chambers, totaling hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Following all of that was a tall order, he said, even for a 6-foot-6 former college basketball player and coach.

That's why Hutchinson is also quick to report he drives his own vehicle, pays for gas out of his pocket and plops down for work every day in an office chair that's 20 years old, or better.

Basketball did factor in before law school. The Raleigh County native starred in that sport in high school and earned a full scholarship at Davis and Elkins College.

He was so taken with the game that he served as an assistant coach at his alma mater, before moving on to another coaching post at Concord University, just over the ridge.

"I realized I was only going to go so far in small-college basketball, " he said. "And I had a family to raise."

Enrollment in the WVU College of Law followed, and he became a lawyer, and eventually, a Raleigh County circuit judge, with a bent for helping families in crisis—be it custody disputes or foster care situations.

Going after the bad guys Bunn likes the diversity of the chief justice's experience, she said. Same for her other colleagues on the court.

Back in Oceana, Wyoming County, she was a home-schooled kid, who, as she got older and more socially aware, became angry — righteously, so — at the flood of opioids into her town and its surrounding hills and hollows.

She knew early on she was going into the legal profession because of that lethal influx, she said.

Every overdose, every arrest, every death, was a person and a family, she said.

Bunn wanted to give a voice to the victims of addiction, she said.

She liked the literal checks and balances of the system — what she calls, "the majesty of the law."

She came to Morgantown for both her undergraduate and law degrees.

In 2017, she was one of a dozen prosecutors in the country to serve in the newly created Opioid Fraud and Abuse Detection Unit, where she didn't waste any time in the courtroom.

One case she prosecuted added up to a collective 90-year prison sentence for a group of methamphetamine trackers.

She also helped a send a Charleston neurologist to jail for illegally prescribing opioids.

The verdict is in Anna Lester said she appreciated all the circumstances that sent a pair of high court justices to her high school.

The MHS junior and student in Blinco's class wants to be lawyer, too.

"I'm pretty thrilled to be in the presence of two Supreme Court judges, " she said. "I like hearing about their insights and all the things they've done in their careers. We get to see them as actual people."

Bunn knows all about real people, she said, laughing. She got down and dirty in one of her first acts as a Supreme Court justice, in fact.

She and her husband, also an attorney, are the parents of two young daughters. Immediately after her appointment to the bench, Bunn drove straight home—to regard her youngest, who was 2.

"Diaper, Mommy, " the progeny demanded.

"So I changed a diaper, " Bunn said. "Because I'm a mom. I'm a real person."

A real person, with definite likes during a certain time of the year when the ghosts and ghouls come out to say, "trick or treat."

After an hour-long, question-and-answer session that touched on foster care and gun control, Blinco lightened the dialogue.

"This is for both justices: What's your favorite Halloween candy ?"

Hutchinson didn't deliberate for one second.

"Candy corn. I'm a corn guy. That's it."

"Milky Way, " Bunn said. "Full size."

Blinco's summation was quick and concise.

"Now we know, " he said.

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