CHARLESTON, WV (LOOTPRESS) – Warren McGraw, a man who held many titles from delegate to chief justice of the West Virginia Supreme Court, lied in state at the Capitol in Charleston this afternoon.
Many made their way to the Great Room of the West Virginia State Capitol to pay their respects to McGraw today who passed away on June 14, 2023.
A service to remember and honor McGraw’s life was also held at the Capitol this afternoon.
Judge McGraw was born on May 10, 1939, in Wyoming County. He attended Wyoming County public schools and graduated from Morris Harvey College (now the University of Charleston) with a bachelor’s degree in political science, history, and economics in 1960.
He attended graduate school at West Virginia University and earned his law degree in 1963 from Wake Forest University.
He was elected to the West Virginia House of Delegates in 1968 and 1970 and the West Virginia Senate in 1972, 1976, and 1980. He was President of the state Senate from 1980 to 1985.
He was honored by Rutgers University’s Eagleton Institute of Politics as a National Outstanding Legislator in 1971.
In 1986, he was elected to the Wyoming County Board of Education; in 1996, he was elected Wyoming County Prosecuting Attorney; in 1998, he was elected to the Supreme Court and was selected as Chief Justice in 2001; and, in 2008, he was elected circuit judge in Wyoming County and re-elected in 2016.
In addition to being an attorney in private practice, he was also a steel and chemical worker, a U.S. Department of Justice trial lawyer, a legal services attorney, and an instructor at the West Virginia University Extension Agency.
He was a member of the Wyoming and Raleigh County Bar Associations and Rotary International.
He was a Paul Harris Fellow and a recipient of the Friend of Education Margaret Baldwin Award from the West Virginia Education Association. He received the 2022 Fred H. Caplan Award from the West Virginia Association of Justice in recognition of his lifetime of service to West Virginia.
McGraw had been battling Parkinson’s Disease since 2021.
Judge McGraw was married to Peggy Shufflebarger, and they have three children.
