Five "friend of the court" briefs were filed Wednesday supporting Massey Energy in an appeal from Hugh Caperton and Harman Mining now before the U.S. Supreme Court.
Five "friend of the court" briefs were filed Wednesday supporting Massey Energy in an appeal from Hugh Caperton and Harman Mining now before the U.S. Supreme Court.
Campaign contributions backing state judicial candidates are a form of free speech that should not be restricted by the U.S. Supreme Court, those briefs argue.
The Center for Competitive Politics, the James Madison Center for Free Speech, Alabama Attorney General Troy King and six other state attorneys general, 10 former state Supreme Court justices and two law professors filed the latest briefs.
The Caperton/Harman appeal argues that West Virginia Supreme Court Justice Brent Benjamin should have stepped down from casting two deciding votes in decisions that overturned a 2002 Boone County jury verdict awarding them $50 million in damages. The jury decided Massey illegally highjacked a long-term coal supply contract Harman had with LTV Corp., a Pittsburgh steel company.
That verdict is now worth more than $82 million, with interest.
Benjamin won election to the Supreme Court in 2004, defeating incumbent Justice Warren McGraw. During that campaign, Massey CEO Donald L. Blankenship spent more than $3 million of his own money, primarily buying television ads criticizing McGraw.
Massey immediately challenged the Boone County jury verdict, but did not file a formal appeal to the West Virginia Supreme Court until 2006.
The brief filed by the Center for Competitive Politics, based in Alexandria, Va., argues that elected state supreme court justices should not be required to recuse themselves from cases because a CEO of one party exercised First Amendment rights by making personal contributions to an independent advocacy group.
"And For The Sake Of The Kids" was the independent group Blankenship funded.
Judges should be forced to recuse themselves only if they have a "direct, personal, substantial, pecuniary interest" in a pending case, CCP argues.
"If the Supreme Court rules that independent campaign speech creates an unconstitutional 'bias or its appearance' in elected judges that do not recuse, then lower courts will infer that independent expenditures create 'corruption or its appearance' in elected legislators that do not abstain," CCP Vice President Stephen M. Hoersting stated.
Free speech would be "the inevitable casualty" of such a ruling, Hoersting added.
The James Madison Center for Free Speech, based in Terre Haute, Ind., disputes the argument made by some Caperton/Harman supporters that large campaign donations undermine public trust in government.
"Some degree of political cynicism or skepticism of government," the James Madison Center agues, "need not be corrosive of public institutions, and in fact can have a salutary effect."
Five "friend of the court" briefs were filed Wednesday supporting Massey Energy in an appeal from Hugh Caperton and Harman Mining now before the U.S. Supreme Court.
Campaign contributions backing state judicial candidates are a form of free speech that should not be restricted by the U.S. Supreme Court, those briefs argue.
The Center for Competitive Politics, the James Madison Center for Free Speech, Alabama Attorney General Troy King and six other state attorneys general, 10 former state Supreme Court justices and two law professors filed the latest briefs.
The Caperton/Harman appeal argues that West Virginia Supreme Court Justice Brent Benjamin should have stepped down from casting two deciding votes in decisions that overturned a 2002 Boone County jury verdict awarding them $50 million in damages. The jury decided Massey illegally highjacked a long-term coal supply contract Harman had with LTV Corp., a Pittsburgh steel company.
That verdict is now worth more than $82 million, with interest.
Benjamin won election to the Supreme Court in 2004, defeating incumbent Justice Warren McGraw. During that campaign, Massey CEO Donald L. Blankenship spent more than $3 million of his own money, primarily buying television ads criticizing McGraw.
Massey immediately challenged the Boone County jury verdict, but did not file a formal appeal to the West Virginia Supreme Court until 2006.
The brief filed by the Center for Competitive Politics, based in Alexandria, Va., argues that elected state supreme court justices should not be required to recuse themselves from cases because a CEO of one party exercised First Amendment rights by making personal contributions to an independent advocacy group.
"And For The Sake Of The Kids" was the independent group Blankenship funded.
Judges should be forced to recuse themselves only if they have a "direct, personal, substantial, pecuniary interest" in a pending case, CCP argues.
"If the Supreme Court rules that independent campaign speech creates an unconstitutional 'bias or its appearance' in elected judges that do not recuse, then lower courts will infer that independent expenditures create 'corruption or its appearance' in elected legislators that do not abstain," CCP Vice President Stephen M. Hoersting stated.
Free speech would be "the inevitable casualty" of such a ruling, Hoersting added.
The James Madison Center for Free Speech, based in Terre Haute, Ind., disputes the argument made by some Caperton/Harman supporters that large campaign donations undermine public trust in government.
"Some degree of political cynicism or skepticism of government," the James Madison Center agues, "need not be corrosive of public institutions, and in fact can have a salutary effect."
The Center also argues the "nebulous nature" of the Caperton appeal to the Supreme Court would "vastly increase the number of recusal requests brought before the court," if it should decide in Caperton's favor.
In his brief Alabama Attorney General King said state Supreme Courts should not be forced to follow federal requirements to force a justice to step down in a case.
He was joined by attorneys general from Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Louisiana, Michigan and Utah.
King argues a ruling favoring Caperton would mean similar motions "would fly fast and furious" in states across the nation and "would gum up the state litigation process."
Such a ruling would "unduly burden" state courts," cause judges to "over-recuse" themselves and "encourage mischief and manipulation," the King brief argues.
Ten current or former state justices filed a brief questioning how broad an impact a pro-Caperton decision might have in forcing recusal on any elected justices who receive major campaign donations. The four incumbent justices are Maura D. Corrigan and Robert P. Young from Michigan, as well as Richard B. Saunders from Washington and Evelyn Lundberg Stratton from Ohio.
The six former justices are Raoul C. Cantero III from Florida, Craig T. Eonch from Texas, Clifford W. Taylor from Michigan, Burley B. Mitchell Jr. from North Carolina, as well as Perry O. Hooper Sr. and Harold F. See Jr., both from Alabama.
"The debt of gratitude argument has no logical stopping point and creation of an amorphous due process test will lead the public to holding the judiciary in lower esteem," the 10 justices argue.
In their brief, law professors Ronald D. Rotunda, from Chapman University in Orange, Calif., and Michael R. Domino, from Widener University in Wilmington, Del., argue a Supreme Court decision favoring Caperton "would swiftly threaten the practice of electing state court judges....
"The states currently exhibit a diverse and evolving set of methods for selecting judges, deciding how and whether they should retain their positions and deciding when they cannot hear particular cases."
Rotunda and Domino add that a ruling favoring Caperton would eventually challenge the way U.S. Supreme Court and district court justices are selected - nominated by the president and approved by the Senate.
The Supreme Court has scheduled oral arguments in the Caperton case on March 3.
Reach Paul J. Nyden at pjny...@wvgazette.com or 304-348-5164.
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This is not a freedom of speech issue. This is Democratic terrorism.
Of course, democratic terrorism is nothing new in WV. Judges and politicians have always been bought and sold in this state.
Will the Mountaineers ever be able to throw off the heavy yoke of corporate oppression? The last time we tried the US military dropped bombs on us. So you see, "they" are all in on it. Our country is corrupt from top to bottom.
Take the bailout for example. Give all that money to We the People and help us pay off debts. Wouldn't most of that money trickle up to the banks and in turn bail them out too?
But no! Our corporate owned government gave all that money to the very same white color criminals who caused this crisis in the first place.
Wall St. CEOs need to go to jail. They socialize risk and privatize profit.