CHARLESTON, W.Va. - Alabama Attorney General Troy King wants attorneys general around the country to join him in supporting West Virginia Supreme Court Chief Justice Brent Benjamin and Massey Energy in a case pending before the U.S. Supreme Court.

King believes the U.S. Supreme Court should not create any federal rules about when or why state court justices should remove themselves from hearing cases before them.

The appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, filed by Hugh Caperton and Harman Mining, argues Benjamin should have recused himself voting on two state Supreme Court rulings that overturned a $50 million Boone County jury verdict against Massey for hijacking a coal contract Harman had with LTV Steel in Pittsburgh.

The court accepted the appeal on Nov. 14.

Don Blankenship, Massey's CEO, spent more than $3 million of his own money to help elect Benjamin over incumbent Justice Warren McGraw in November 2004.

Benjamin then cast deciding votes in both decisions overruling the verdict against Massey, now worth $82 million with interest.

Dan Schweitzer, a lawyer for the National Association of Attorneys General, e-mailed a memorandum on Friday morning outlining Troy's position to other attorneys general across the country.

King will circulate a final draft of his amicus brief on Jan. 28, the e-mail states. The deadline for other attorneys general to join him is Feb. 3, the day before the brief is due.

Lawyers for both sides will argue the case before the nation's highest court on March 3.

"The amicus brief will argue," Schweitzer's e-mail states, "that once a state has chosen its preferred method of selecting judges - whatever that method is - states should have the ability to police judicial participation through carefully constructed state recusal policies.

"In other words, making recusal a federal issue by 'constitutionalizing' it is unnecessary and, as a practical matter, unwise," the e-mail states.

Schweitzer's e-mail adds that the basis of Caperton's "motion to recuse was that, while the appeal was percolating, the CEO of A.T. Massey Coal spent substantial sums of money on Benjamin's election campaign."

A central issue is whether elected Supreme Court justices should be required to step down from cases when one party contributes such a large amount of money to their election campaigns.

King - a Republican elected on a platform stressing family values and opposing child predators, drug use and gambling - will not be taking sides in an ongoing debate about whether state Supreme Court justices should be elected or appointed, the e-mail states.

"Nor will Alabama be attempting to downplay the seriousness of the allegations of impropriety here," the memo continues. "Alabama will focus solely on [whether] ... states should have the ability to police judicial participation through carefully constructed state recusal policies....

"Federalizing the issue is unnecessary because the states are currently handling the issue with their own rules and regulations."

West Virginia has no rules about Supreme Court justices stepping down from hearing cases.

Academic organizations, public interest groups and private companies including the American Bar Association and League of Women Voters, filed "friends of the court" briefs backing Caperton.

Another brief filed by Wal-Mart, Lockheed Martin, Intel Corp. and PepsiCo argues: "There is a need to signal to businesses and the general public that judicial decisions cannot be bought and sold. Reversal of the judgment ... based on Justice Benjamin's failure to recuse himself would accomplish that."

Benjamin has refused to comment on the dispute. But in a concurring written opinion filed on July 28, Benjamin states he was not biased by Blankenship's $3 million campaign expenditures.

Federal judicial canons, Benjamin wrote, dispel "any contention that appearance-based judging should supercede judging based on actualities.

"Simply stated, a decision which is firmly rooted in legal substance should not yield to a collateral partisan attack which manipulates appearances. Rather, it should rise or fall on its own substantive merits," Benjamin wrote.

Reach Paul J. Nyden at pjny...@wvgazette.com">pjny...@wvgazette.com or 304-348-5164.