 
Just in from the U.S. Supreme Court, via The Associated Press:
The Supreme Court ruled Monday that elected judges must step aside from cases when large campaign contributions from interested parties create the appearance of bias.
By a 5-4 vote in a case from West Virginia, the court said that a judge who remained involved in a lawsuit filed against the company of the most generous supporter of his election deprived the other side of the constitutional right to a fair trial.
With multimillion-dollar judicial election campaigns on the rise, the court’s decision Monday could have widespread significance. Justice at Stake, which tracks campaign spending in judicial elections, says judges are elected in 39 states and that candidates for the highest state courts have raised more than $168 million since 2000.
The West Virginia case involved more than $3 million spent by the chief executive of Massey Energy Co. to help elect state Supreme Court Justice Brent Benjamin. At the same time, Massey was appealing a verdict, which now totals $82.7 million with interest, in a dispute with a local coal company. Benjamin refused to step aside from the case, despite repeated requests, and was part of a 3-2 decision to overturn the verdict.
You can read the opinion here.
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Ken,
I can only speculate on weather the possibility that Don Blankenship might fund a candidate to replace him weighed heavily on Judge Burnside when he refused to allow defendants to present their case in Raleigh District Court in the Massey v Caskey, the lawsuit against participants (and journalists) in the Climate Ground Zero Campaign against mountain top removal. Judge Burnside also upheld the contempt of court charges for violating a clearly unconstitutional Temporary Restraining Order. Burnside may have been following his own reading of the law, but we may never know. This case has cast doubt on the ability of the courts to be fair when the interests of big coal companies are involved.
I find the dissent by Chief Justice Roberts (beginning on page 25) to be the most interesting part. On pages 28 through 34, he lists 40 questions and he states:
“The majority’s analysisis “objective†in that it does not inquire into Justice Benjamin’s motives or decisionmaking process. But the standard the majority articulates—“probability of biasâ€â€”failsto provide clear, workable guidance for future cases. At the most basic level, it is unclear whether the new probability of bias standard is somehow limited to financial support in judicial elections, or applies to judicial recusal questions more generally. ”
“But there are other fundamental questions as well.With little help from the majority, courts will now have todetermine:”
The last two being:
39. Does the judge get to respond to the allegation that he is probably biased, or is his reputation solely in thehands of the parties to the case?
40. What if the parties settle a Caperton claim as part of abroader settlement of the case? Does that leave the judge with no way to salvage his reputation?
Maybe this case will still have to go to the Judge Judy TV court where it should have gone anyways – http://www.judgejudy.com/
Roberts questions #39 & #40 read like (yet more) excellent reasons for a judge to recuse herself/himself from a case where there is a conflict of interest or where there is the appearance of a conflict of interest.
I appeared in a case before a U.S. District Court Judge who had practiced law with the plantiff’s father and who had the plantiff’s clerk for him. The U.S. Attorney handling the case would not file for a recusal because he knew the judge wouldn’t do it — more so, he would be appearing before the judge many times later on.
The attorney knew what the ruling was going to be and he was already preparing to appeal it which he successfully got overturned.
Roselle,
I have to give you credit. Most people facing potential contempt of court charges wouldn’t libel the judge.
Regards
Mathew,
I was just wondering.
Not completely on topic, but an environmental case currently before the court that we’ve discussed here and, now, another disappointing example of the Obama Administration going with Bush Administration’s thinking on mining, in this case the Stephen Griles fill rule:
http://legalplanet.wordpress.com/2009/06/05/coeur-alaska-a-shifting-legal-position-by-the-obama-administration/
Maybe, Justice Chambers will remember to recuse himself the next time he is ask to rule on a permit challange. His past membership in enviromental groups may put his rulings in question and open to appeal.
Are the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals judges elected or appointed?
DaisyMay, the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals is federal, therefore appointed – judges at all levels of the federal system are appointed. Thirteen states also have an appointment process; West Virginia is one of 37 states that elects judges (and open themselves up to the kind of manipulation the U.S. Supreme Court just rejected).
Campaign Cash Mirrors a High Court’s Rulings
NYTimes, 10/1/2006
http://nytimes.com/2006/10/01/us/01judges.html?pagewanted=all
Thirty-nine states elect judges, and 30 states are holding elections for seats on their highest courts this year. Spending in these races is skyrocketing, with some judges raising $2 million or more for a single campaign. As the amounts rise, questions about whether money is polluting the independence of the judiciary are being fiercely debated across the nation. And nowhere is the battle for judicial seats more ferocious than in Ohio.
An examination of the Ohio Supreme Court by The New York Times found that its justices routinely sat on cases after receiving campaign contributions from the parties involved or from groups that filed supporting briefs. On average, they voted in favor of contributors 70 percent of the time. Justice O’Donnell voted for his contributors 91 percent of the time, the highest rate of any justice on the court.
In the 12 years that were studied, the justices almost never disqualified themselves from hearing their contributors’ cases. In the 215 cases with the most direct potential conflicts of interest, justices recused themselves just 9 times.
Thanks for the info. I was just wondering since the 4th Circuit is in Richmond where Massey is headquartered.
[...] Benjamin didn’t recuse himself seemed like a reasonable question, given the fact that the U.S. Supreme Court earlier this year ruled that Benjamin should have stepped down from another Massey case because of Blankenship spent [...]