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CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- On the day after oral arguments in Caperton v. Massey at the U.S. Supreme Court, lawyers for Massey have asked for permission to include a report detailing West Virginia Supreme Court Chief Justice Brent Benjamin's Massey-related voting record.

In an earlier brief, Massey had argued that Benjamin's multiple votes against affiliates of Massey Energy Co. dispelled any appearance of bias in its favor possibly created by Massey chief executive Don Blankenship's contributions to help elect Benjamin in 2004. Blankenship contributed about $3 million to efforts to unseat Benjamin's opponent, incumbent Warren McGraw.

"Two days ago, the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals released pertinent new information about Justice Benjamin's voting record that buttresses our argument," the new brief filed Wednesday states.

The brief repeats the report's findings that, since taking office, Benjamin has voted against Massey's interests 81.6 percent of the time.

Lawyers for Caperton, who have maintained that Benjamin violated Caperton's right to a fair trial by refusing to step aside on his case, filed written opposition to making the report a part of the record.

"The only thing that is remotely 'new' about the information proffered by Massey is that it was repackaged in a self-serving news release on the eve of the oral argument before this court," their filing reads.

Benjamin twice voted with the majority in overturning a $50 million verdict against Massey by a Boone County jury in 2002. With interest, that verdict is now worth more than $82 million.

The report Massey wants the court to consider was prepared under the direction of Jennifer Bundy, the state Supreme Court's public information officer. According to the accompanying news release, Bundy, whose work was reviewed by court lawyers to ensure its accuracy, examined only dispositive votes and opinions, or final decisions that would have concluded the court's involvement with each case.

Bundy told the Gazette earlier this week that she had received media requests for details of Benjamin's voting record about a month ago, but she and other court staff were able to complete their review only last weekend.

"It took us weeks to put that list together, because we wanted to be sure that it was complete and accurate," she said.

She gave the results to the media outlet that made the first request, as is her office's custom, and then released it generally through a news release on Monday, she said.

Caperton's lawyers argue that Benjamin's voting record was discussed at length in prior filings, including Benjamin's own 58-page written opinion discussing his decision not to recuse himself from the case.

There is new information pertaining to the case, the Caperton brief states, specifically a New York Times article published Wednesday that includes quotes from Blankenship describing a meeting with Benjamin during the campaign.

"'I thought, If I want to beat this guy I ought to know who's running against him,' Mr. Blankenship said, adding that the meeting did not go well," the Times article states.

The article continues to quote Blankenship: "When he got through talking to me, I said, Mr. Benjamin, I don't know who you are, but if you go around talking to business people about raising money, you need to do more listening than you do talking. I said, I've hardly been able to find out anything about you, but I don't like McGraw."

Gazette reporter Paul Nyden detailed another encounter between Benjamin and Blankenship in 2006 in a Sunday Gazette-Mail article Feb. 15.

Two weeks later, the Gazette-Mail published a letter to the editor by Bundy, criticizing Nyden for being "disingenuous" by not disclosing that he had been at the dinner himself.

"To now contend, three years later, that this happenstance encounter ... was in any way improper is ridiculous," Bundy wrote.

The Caperton brief maintains that the Times account, not the state Supreme Court's report, sheds new light on the case.

"[I]t would tend to reinforce [our] argument that the CEO had set out to pick a judge for his own case and that any reasonable observer would conclude that a judge selected under those circumstances quite probably would be biased in favor of the CEO who spent so much to elect him," the brief states.

Massey's previous brief, filed in January, addressed the relationship - or lack thereof - between Blankenship and Benjamin.

"[T]here is no indication that Blankenship and Justice Benjamin even knew one another, before or after the election," the brief states.

Reach Andrew Clevenger at acleven...@wvgazette.com">acleven...@wvgazette.com or 304-348-1723.