Opinion ID: 1288202
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 12

Heading: The 2004 West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals Election

Text: The Appellees and the dissenters take the position that, notwithstanding a judge's duty to hear cases in West Virginia and the lack of any actual disqualifying basis, due process compels my disqualification because of appearances they contend exist from my election some four years ago. Specifically, the Appellees and the dissenters contend the following: (I) in 2004, a political Independent Expenditure Group (or 527 Group) called And for the Sake of the Kids (ASK) independently campaigned against former-Justice McGraw, in part with contributions made to it by Mr. Blankenship; (ii) I won election; and (iii) this case involves Mr. Blankenship's employer, Appellant Massey. While this self-serving and oversimplified account of the 2004 election may advance an apparent conflict standard, its omission of material facts of what actually occurred in 2004 is disturbing. The Appellees fail to consider the following: (I) the decision herein was issued over three years after my election [24] ; (ii) in West Virginia, elected judges have a duty to hear cases unless disqualification is required [25] ; (iii) I neither have, nor at any time have ever had, any direct, personal, substantial or pecuniary interest, real or otherwise, in the outcome of this case; (iv) my campaign was completely independent of any independent expenditure group or individual, such as ASK [26] ; (v) the outcome of the 2004 election was due primarily to my campaign's message of fairness, stability and predictability in decision-making, the importance of the rule of law to courts, and the need for judges to exercise civility, integrity and personal professionalism [27] ; (vi) the campaign of my opponent, former-Justice McGraw, was devastated by a speech which he gave at Racine, West Virginia, on Labor Day, and by the effective publication of this speech to the people of West Virginia by the Benjamin campaign [28] ; (vii) no improper act or conduct, and no appearance of an improper act or conduct with respect to this case, or any other case, has occurred on my part; (viii) nothing in my history as a jurist (including a number of cases involving Massey and/or its subsidiaries) reveals any bias or prejudice for or against any of the parties in this case; [29] (ix) no attorneys, other than the counsel in this case, [30] have ever sought my recusal in a matter involving Masseyincluding the current administration and West Virginia's Attorney General [31] ; and (x) former-Justice McGraw was, and had been for several decades, a colorful and controversial politician [32] in West Virginia and had an extremely contentious Democratic primary race in 2004 where significant electoral support went to his opponent, Circuit Judge Jim Rowe. [33] The law simply does not support the Appellees' position. As such, the disqualification issue herein gives the appearance of being a diversion away from the solid basis for the majority's opinion herein. Under the rules of this Court, the determination of whether a Justice should recuse him/herself from a case is left to the discretion of the individual Justice. [34] Of course, this discretion is tempered by the decision in Aetna, which held that `it certainly violates the Fourteenth Amendment ... to subject [a person's] liberty or property to the judgment of a court the judge of which has a direct, personal, substantial, pecuniary interest in reaching a conclusion against him in his case.' Aetna, 475 U.S. at 821-22, 106 S.Ct. at 1585 (quoting Tumey, 273 U.S. at 523, 47 S.Ct. at 441). Although I declined to recuse myself from this case, this Court did not invoke its authority under Aetna to remove me from the case. Simply put, I do not have, nor was there any evidence to show that I had a direct, personal, substantial, pecuniary interest in this case.