Massey Case Argued Beore Supreme Court

This morning the US Supreme Court heard arguments in a case involving a pair of West Virginia coal companies and a judge that gets to the heart of the judicial systems promise of a fair trial. In the original case a jury found that Massey Energy, had fraudulently driven a small competitor, the Harman Mining Corporation, into bankruptcy through unfair practices. The jury awarded Harman $50 million in 2002. The case was appealed and before it went before the West Virginia Supreme Court. Before the hearing, Massey chief executive, Don Blankenship dumped millions of dollars into a campaign to unseat a judge. The judge who replaced that unseated judge, Brent Benjamin, provided a key vote in overturning that lower court case. He had been asked to recuse himself from the case but did not, saying he had not been influenced by the campaign contributions. Pittsburgh based lawyer Dave Fawcett of Buchanan Ingersoll has taken the case through the system. Fawcette says the argument before the Supreme Court this morning was “spirited” and the justices asked the lawyers for both sides tough questions. Fawcett says he cannot read the leanings of the court and will have to wait for the opinion to be issued. He says the justices asked several hypothetical questions that he felt were intended to get a better understanding of the larger issue. The cost of running a judicial campaign is growing and the intensity of those elections is also increasing. Fawcett says the Supreme Court justices seemed to be looking for “a rule that is workable.” He says they wondered about smaller contributions or contributions from unions and other organizations. Fawcett says his is a much more extreme case. The owner of Massey gave $3 million to the campaign, that is more than all other sources combined. Fawcett says if the justices issue an opinion that does not send this back to the WV Supreme court, to be heard again without the judge in question, it will send the judicial system “to hell in a hand basket.”