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From: Alice McKeown < Alice.McKeown@sierraclub.org>
Date: Jan 15, 2008 10:19 AM
Subject: NYT: Motion Ties W. Virginia Justice to Coal Executive
To: COAL-CAMPAIGN-ALERTS@lists.sierraclub.org

For additional information visit
http://www.wvgazette.com/section/News/2008011427

Motion Ties W. Virginia Justice to Coal Executive
NYTimes
By ADAM LIPTAK
Published: January 15, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/15/us/15court.html?hp

A justice of the West Virginia Supreme Court and a powerful coal-company
executive met in Monte Carlo in the summer of 2006, sharing several meals
even as the executive's companies were appealing a $50 million jury verdict
against them to the court.

A little more than a year later, the justice, Elliott E. Maynard, voted
with the majority in a 3-to-2 decision in favor of the coal companies.

Justice Maynard, who is now West Virginia's chief justice, and Don L.
Blankenship, the chief executive of Massey Energy, were "vacationing
together," according to a motion seeking Justice Maynard's
disqualification, which was filed on Monday.

A spokesman for Massey Energy disputed that characterization.

"Both Blankenship and Justice Maynard were separately vacationing in the
Monte Carlo area," said the spokesman, Jeff Gillenwater. "They were not
vacationing together. They did meet occasionally for meals — lunches and
dinners."

The motion included photographs showing the men together. The time stamps
on the photographs, apparently taken by someone who had joined the men
during their time together, indicated that they met on July 3, 4 and 5,
2006.

Asked whether it was a coincidence that the two men found themselves in
Monte Carlo at the same time, Mr. Gillenwater said, "That is a coincidence,
I think, and it's my understanding they were not staying in the same
location." Justice Maynard stayed in Nice, France, Mr. Gillenwater said,
and Mr. Blankenship in nearby Monte Carlo.

The motion asked Chief Justice Maynard to disqualify himself from the case
and to withdraw his vote in favor of the coal companies. The state's canons
of judicial ethics say that judges must disqualify themselves when their
"impartiality might reasonably be questioned."

They add that judges should disclose any information they believe the
parties or their lawyers "might consider relevant to the question of their
disqualification."

Chief Justice Maynard did not disclose the meetings in Monte Carlo, and he
did not respond to requests for comment Monday.

Ten of the photographs attached to the motion were filed under seal. They
showed, the motion said, "two females apparently traveling with them as
companions." The men are single.

The case itself was brought by mining companies that said they had been
driven out of business by fraud committed by Massey. "Make no mistake,"
Justice Larry V. Starcher wrote in his dissent in November. "A West
Virginia jury heard from all the witnesses for both sides, and decided that
Mr. Don Blankenship directed an illegal scheme to break" the companies.

Mr. Blankenship and his companies have attracted attention for labor
disputes, workplace injuries and what environmentalists call a highly
destructive form of mining called mountaintop removal that involves using
explosives to blow off the tops of mountains to reach coal seams.

Hugh M. Caperton, the owner and president of Harman Development
Corporation, a mining company that Massey was said to have driven out of
business, said he was angry when he learned about the photographs, and
doubly so when he saw the dates time-stamped on them.

"That's when all the miners take their families to Myrtle Beach and Pigeon
Forge, if they can, if they can afford to," Mr. Caperton said, referring to
vacation spots in South Carolina and Tennessee. "They go camping at the
river while the chief justice and Don Blankenship are smiling and
frolicking on the French Riviera."

Stephen Gillers, who teaches legal ethics at New York University School of
Law, said Chief Justice Maynard should not have socialized with Mr.
Blankenship and should now disqualify himself from the case. Federal judges
in Manhattan, Professor Gillers said, will not even have lunch with old
friends while they have cases pending in their court.

In 2004, Justice Antonin Scalia of the United States Supreme Court refused
to disqualify himself from a case involving Vice President Dick Cheney,
although the two had gone on a duck hunting trip together. Justice Scalia
reasoned that disqualification was not required because Mr. Cheney had been
sued in his official capacity. On the other hand, Justice Scalia wrote,
"friendship is a ground for recusal of a justice where the personal fortune
or the personal freedom of the friend is at issue."

Mr. Blankenship was not named individually in Mr. Caperton's suit. But he
was a central figure in it, and his compensation includes shares and stock
options. "The monetary effect on Blankenship is potentially enormous,"
Professor Gillers said, referring to the November decision.

Bruce E. Stanley, a lawyer with Reed Smith in Pittsburgh who represents Mr.
Caperton, said he viewed the filing as "an opportunity for the court to get
its house in order."

D. C. Offutt Jr., a lawyer for Massey in West Virginia, said the only
question was whether Chief Justice Maynard could be fair and impartial.
"That's his decision to make," Mr. Offutt said, "and he has always taken
the position that he can."