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Caperton Media Review

By Charlie Hall

Yesterday’s Supreme Court decision in Caperton v. Massey has caused an outpouring of national media. Here is a summary:

New York Times: Justices Tell Judges Not to Rule on Major Backers

By ADAM LIPTAK

WASHINGTON ? Elected judges must disqualify themselves from cases involving people who spent exceptionally large sums to put them on the bench, the Supreme Court ruled on Monday in a 5-to-4 decision.

The decision, the first to say the Constitution?s due process clause has a role to play in policing the role of money in judicial elections, ordered the chief justice of the West Virginia Supreme Court to recuse himself from a $50 million case against a coal company whose chief executive had spent $3 million to elect him.

Thirty-nine states, including New York, elect at least some of their judges, and election campaigns, particularly for state supreme courts, have in recent years grown increasingly expensive and nasty. In the last decade, spending on elections for state high courts has reached $200 million, according to Justice at Stake, a group that tracks campaign spending. Elected judges routinely accept contributions from lawyers and litigants who appear before them, and they seldom disqualify themselves for cases involving donors. Click for full article.

Washington Post: Court Ties Campaign Largess to Judicial Bias

By Robert Barnes

The Supreme Court yesterday ruled for the first time that excessive campaign contributions to a judge create an unconstitutional threat to a fair trial, a decision that could have a nationwide impact on whether judges must recuse themselves in cases involving their political benefactors.

In a case that crystallized a growing national debate over how multimillion-dollar judicial campaigns are affecting the public’s view of impartial justice, the court decided that in some “extreme” cases, the risk of bias violates the constitutional guarantee of due process. Click for full article.

Slate: The Great Caperton Caper
The Supreme Court talks about judicial bias. Kinda.

By Dahlia Lithwick

Today the Supreme Court decided the odd, Grisham-like story of Caperton v. Massey?finding that a justice on the West Virginia Supreme Court should have recused himself in an appeal involving a party who spent millions of dollars to put him on the bench. But lost in all the high-power judgery is this fascinating fact: Both the majority and the dissent are pretty worried about judicial bias, the appearance of judicial bias, confidence in the integrity of the judiciary, and what to do about public confidence in human-seeming judges.
Click to read full story.

Wall Street Journal: Justices Set New Standards for Recusals

By Jess Bravin and Kris Maher

The Supreme Court set a new standard for judges to recuse themselves from cases, ruling that a state supreme court justice who benefited from $3 million in campaign contributions from a coal executive should have stayed out of a lawsuit involving the executive’s company.
Justice Anthony Kennedy, joined by the court’s four liberals, wrote that the ?extreme facts? of the case, which inspired a John Grisham novel, raised ?the probability of actual bias.? Click to read full article.

Wall Street Journal Law Blog: Massey Coal Ruling Getting Thumbs Up in Judicial Circles

We checked in with assorted and sundry smart people to get their view on the Massey Coal ruling. The consensus reaction, it seems: happiness. 

In a nutshell, the court ruled Monday Monday that a West Virginia justice shouldn?t have participated in state court decisions overturning a $50 million judgment against Massey Coal, whose chief executive had been a major financial supporter of the justice?s campaign for office. The decision effectively creates a new constitutional recusal standard for judges who take contributions to fund their election campaigns. Click to read full article.

LA Times: Supreme Court says judges can’t rule in cases involving own big donors

By David G. Savage

Reporting from Washington — The U.S. Supreme Court put elected judges on notice Monday that they must step aside from deciding cases involving big-money donors who helped them win their jobs.

The decision comes after a decade in which corporate interests and trial lawyers have waged increasingly costly campaigns for 21 states’ supreme court seats. Most are in the Great Lakes region or the South.

The justices said Monday that there is a real risk of bias — and certainly the appearance of it — if one side has spent millions to elect the judge. Click for full article.

The Atlantic: Supreme Court Invalidates Judicial Election

Though the Supreme Court refused to hear a Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell challenge today, the more politically significant decision came in a five-to-four ruling that will probably change the way that judges are elected in the 39 states where jurists are held accountable by voters.

The court’s center-left majority held that an “independent” $3 million bundled contribution orchestrated by Don Blankenship, the CEO of a coal mining company, to Judge Brent Benjamin — one that helped get Benjamin elected — appeared to be directly related to a case that Benjamin, as a newly elected State Supreme Court Justice in West Virginia, would preside over. The case involved a $50 million fraud verdict against the company. $50 million v. $3 million….. not hard to see why Blankenship would try his hand at electing a judge who would be congenial to his interests. Click for full article.

USA TODAY: Court: Judges Must Avoid Appearance of  Bias

By Joan Biscupic

WASHINGTON ? The Supreme Court enhanced the ability of litigants to challenge judges as potentially biased because of campaign contributions, as it ruled 5-4 that a West Virginia judge who won election with big-money support from a coal company executive should have sat out the company’s case.

The high court for the first time set down a rule for disqualifications arising from money judges receive as they campaign for election to the bench. The court said judges must pull out of a dispute when “a serious risk of actual bias” arises because “a person with a personal stake in a particular case had a significant and disproportionate influence” in getting the judge on the bench to hear the case. Click to read full story.

Washington Legal Times: Supreme Court Issues Landmark Ruling on Judicial Recusal

In a landmark ruling that could affect state judicial elections nationwide, the Supreme Court on Monday ruled that due process requires a state judge to recuse when a party in a case before him or her has had a “significant or disproportionate” influence on placing the judge on the court through a large campaign donation.

Justice Anthony Kennedy, writing for the the 5-4 majority, emphasized the ruling affects only extreme cases like the West Virginia case before him in Caperton v. Massey Coal Co. But dissenters led by Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. warned the majority’s standard is vague and will lead to a flood of “Caperton motions” alleging conflicts and seeking recusal that will only sully the reputation of the judiciary, not enhance it. Click to read full article.

Houston Chronicle: High court ruling may stir debate in Texas

By Mary Flood

Judges should withdraw from cases involving major campaign contributors to avoid the appearance of bias, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Monday in an opinion that focuses light on a persistent problem in Texas politics.

Texas, sometimes a center of controversy over judicial campaign contributions, is one of only seven states that elect judges in partisan elections.

?The greater value of this case is to cause a national debate on choosing judges the same way we choose legislators,? said Tom Phillips, a former Harris County judge and chief justice of the Texas Supreme Court and a long-time advocate for merit selection of judges. Click to read full article.

West Virginia Public Radio: What a Long, Strange Case It’s Been

The story behind Caperton v. Massey goes back seven years and involves a cast of characters worthy of a John Grisham novel.

In fact, the case became an inspiration for Grisham as he wrote his latest best-selling novel, ?The Appeal.?

On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court released a decision that West Virginia Supreme Court Justice Brent Benjamin should have recused himself from Caperton v. Massey. Click here for full article.

Full post as published by The Gavel on June 09, 2009 (boomark / email).