Court to hear W.Va. case focusing on campaign cash

CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- A coal executive's bankrolling of a West Virginia justice's election comes under intense scrutiny this week as the nation's highest court considers when judges should step aside from cases involving campaign supporters.

Don Blankenship spent at least $3 million to help Republican Brent Benjamin, a little-known lawyer from Charleston, defeat the incumbent Democrat in 2004. Benjamin later helped form the 3-2 majority that overturned a judgment, now valued at $82.7 million with interest, against Blankenship's Richmond, Va.-based Massey Energy Co.

Legal ethics experts have faulted Benjamin for failing to remove himself from the case. Some also question whether the U.S. justices can craft a ruling that makes clear when campaign support requires a judge to step aside.

"It's going to be such a vague test, the court may be disinclined to set that down," said Bruce Green, a professor and director of the Louis Stein Center for Law and Ethics at Fordham University School of Law. "I don't see a bright line."

Benjamin has defended his presence on the Massey case by arguing, among other things, that he has no personal or financial stake in the energy company and that his election campaign was independent of Blankenship's efforts. He also noted that he has ruled against Massey at least four times, including in a unanimous refusal to hear the company's appeal of a $260 million judgment won in another contract dispute.

Benjamin, who began a one-year term as chief justice in January, has withdrawn temporarily from all Massey-related matters pending before his court while awaiting a ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court.

In an appeal, Harman Mining Corp. and its president, Hugh Caperton, want the justices to declare that their right to due process was violated by Benjamin's refusal to step aside.

The appeal has become a rallying point for an eclectic array of groups -- from Wal-Mart to government watchdog Common Cause and dozens of former jurists -- all decrying the specter of bias conjured by Blankenship's spending.

Massey and its allies say the case threatens the rights of states to govern their courts and to elect their judicial officers as West Virginia and 37 other states do.

Well before the court agreed to hear the Harman appeal, the 58-year-old Blankenship had been a well-known figure in West Virginia.

During a three-year period, Blankenship plowed more than $7 million into a series of political ad campaigns that aided Benjamin, defeated a governor-backed pension bond amendment and sought unsuccessfully to increase Republican ranks at the state legislature.

The head of the nation's fourth-largest coal producer by revenue, Blankenship has become an outspoken advocate of mountaintop removal mining, which blasts away summits to expose coal seams. He is equally vocal about climate change, lambasting the scrutiny of carbon released by burning coal.

Such stances have earned him disdain from environmentalists but Blankenship seems to relish that. He dismissed his critics as "greeniacs" in one speech in November that made its way onto YouTube.

The husky, mustachioed coal executive also drew headlines last year after scuffling with a camera-toting ABC News producer outside his offices in Kentucky. Blankenship claimed the man was trespassing.

ABC News had been reporting on a separate allegation of bias arising from the Harman-Caperton case.

Harman's lawyers unearthed photos in January 2008 that showed Blankenship on the French Riviera with the state Supreme Court's then-chief justice, Elliott "Spike" Maynard. The photos were taken in 2006, while the Harman case was headed to the court on appeal.

Maynard cited a longtime friendship with Blankenship to explain the Monaco travel. Maynard later recused himself from the Harman appeal and lost a re-election campaign four months later.

Last week Blankenship declined comment on Benjamin or other events, saying "I think all these questions have been adequately answered." He previously told The Associated Press he was seeking to improve West Virginia's business climate when he backed Benjamin's judicial campaign against Warren McGraw.

Blankenship bankrolled an array of ads, even buying 30-minute blocks of TV time, to attack McGraw and praise Benjamin. He publicly disclosed $3.08 million in spending to support the winning campaign.