Company CEO Don Blankenship spent more than $3 million to help get Benjamin elected through independent groups such as “And for the Sake of the Kids.”
The big winner is the plaintiff, Hugh Caperton – the owner of a small coal company who blames Massey for illegally driving it out of business.
He won a $50 million verdict against Massey by a Boone County jury, which the state Supreme Court overturned by a 3-2 margin – with Benjamin casting one of the three votes.
Caperton’s lawyer Bruce Stanley says it’s a “tremendous victory” for Hugh Caperton and his family.
“Frankly, no person should have their constitutional rights so threatened by the insolence of big money in judicial politics like that,” Stanley said.
“It’s a brave stance by the Supreme Court of the United States to come out and say so.”
Stanley says the case will be reheard by the state Supreme Court, with another judge replacing Benjamin.
Usually, the chief justice appoints such replacements, but in this case, the chief justice is Benjamin.
State Supreme Court spokeswoman Jennifer Bundy declined to answer questions about that process.
“The West Virginia Supreme Court will follow the United States Supreme Court mandate,” Bundy said.
In the 5-4 decision, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote that Blankenship’s huge contributions made it appear as if he was choosing Benjamin as his own judge.
“Just as no man is allowed to be a judge in his own cause, similar fears of bias can arise when -- without the other parties’ consent -- a man chooses the judge in his own cause,” Kennedy wrote.
“Applying this principle to the judicial election process, there was here a serious, objective risk of actual bias that required Justice Benjamin’s recusal,” Kennedy wrote.
Chief Justice John Roberts, in his dissent, criticized the majority’s decision for being too vague, and failing to answer basic questions, such as “How much money is too much?”
“Unlike the established grounds for disqualification, a ‘probability of bias’ cannot be defined in any limited way,” Roberts wrote.
“The Court’s new ‘rule’ provides no guidance to judges and litigants about when recusal will be constitutionally required. This will inevitably lead to an increase in allegations that judges are biased, however groundless those charges may be,” Roberts wrote.
It’s an opinion shared by Michigan lawyer Patrick Wright, who represented Massey’s side.
Wright predicts hundreds of what he calls “Caperton claims” against judges.
“You’re going to see a short period of chaos, at which point the Supreme Court will decide if they can get control of this and come up with clear standards, or if they are going to have to reverse themselves and do away with this test,” Wright said.
But the majority of justices didn’t believe there will be a flood of bias claims against judges.
Kennedy writes that Massey’s lawyers could find “no other instance involving judicial campaign contributions that presents a potential for bias comparable to the circumstances in this case, which are extreme by any measure.
“And because the States may have codes of conduct with more rigorous recusal standards than due process requires, most recusal disputes will be resolved without resort to the Constitution, making the constitutional standard’s application rare,” Kennedy wrote.
James Sample of the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University says it’s unlikely the decision will release a flood of bias claims.
“I think the court’s decision is narrow, but nonetheless hugely important,” he said.
“The decision points to all the factors, each of them extreme in its own right, that were at play here, and says, taking the all together, it rises to the constitutional level. That will be a very, very rare case,” Sample said.
In light of the decision, West Virginia Governor Joe Manchin says he will speed up the appointment of a committee to explore issues involving the state judiciary – including how judges are elected, and how they recuse themselves from cases, according to Manchin spokesman Matt Turner.
Some state lawmakers are calling for the public financing of judicial elections, while others want to do away with the partisan election of judges, or electing judges altogether.
Massey Energy released a statement saying the company believes it will win without Benjamin.
"We are confident that the Harman case was properly decided by the West Virginia Supreme Court initially and believe that any new examination of the same facts and same laws by new justices should yield the same result as before,” said Shane Harvey, Massey Vice President and General Counsel.
United Mine Workers Association President Cecil Roberts praised the ruling. Caperton’s company, Harman Mining, employed UMWA members.
"Justice is supposed to be blind, but it was not in this case. The Supreme Court has acted correctly to restore the public's confidence that judgments rendered by our court system cannot be bought and sold,” Roberts said.
"This is an important case to the UMWA. The workers at Harman Mining are our members. When Massey put the company out of business, it put our members out of work, with no health care benefits. The union stepped in and paid those benefits for some time, and many of them were eligible for retiree health care coverage from the UMWA Health and Retirement Funds,” Roberts said.
"UMWA members who worked at Harman are owed in excess of $13 million for past and future health care obligations. They and the union are looking forward to this money being repaid to them, and soon," Roberts said.