Lot’s of questions follow Supreme Court’s Benjamin decision
by admin on 09/06/09 at 6:02 am
Charleston Daily Mail
June 9, 2009
By Jake Stump
CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Some observers were reminded of the U.S. Supreme Court’s vague “I know it when I see it” approach when the high court ruled Monday that West Virginia Supreme Court Justice Brent Benjamin should have disqualified himself from a high-profile case involving Massey Energy.
By a 5-4 vote, the high court on Monday found that elected judges must step aside from cases when large campaign expenditures by interested parties create the appearance of bias.
Justices reviewed a 2006 civil appeal, Caperton v. Massey, in which Benjamin twice joined 3-to-2 majorities to shoot down a $50 million verdict against Massey. The case generated a storm of controversy, even inspiring a John Grisham novel, due to what many perceived as a conflict of interest on the part of Benjamin, who refused to remove himself from the case.
But the high court’s decision lacks concreteness and any clear principles that can be applied by other court systems, said Blair Gardner, an attorney with the Charleston law firm of Jackson Kelly. The court did not say for how big a campaign contribution a justice should remove himself from a case nor did it set any specific guidelines or restrictions regarding bias.
Critics of the ruling compare it to another U.S. Supreme Court decision that involved ambiguity.
