SCOTUS: elected judges can't rule on their donors

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	SCOTUS: elected judges can't rule on their donors

masbury

6-8-2009 12:25 PM

217 views

tags:

wv, coal, scotus

masbury says:

Law gets a little fairer, and the coal barons of West Virginia find the WV Supreme Court upheld against them and the judge they funded.
An American decision to be proud of! Money doesn't buy everything!

4 Comments |

Add a Comment

6-8-2009 8:12 PM

debbyski

Don Blankenship is finding out we ain't as dumb as we all look.

6-8-2009 8:25 PM

Jorjor

Here in Wisconsin, pro-business lobbyists managed to get into the state Supreme Court a judge who ruled in cases in which the company her husband worked for was a litigating party. She should have recused herself, and an ethics investigation got underway before she even took the bench. The problem is, she's still there.

6-8-2009 9:44 PM

masbury

Deb - It's a good day for WV!
Jorjor - maybe this will be the end of that!

6-10-2009 3:43 AM

darkeforce

Just their highest donor? They should be recused from any cases that involve any of their campaign donors.

Better yet, why are any judges being elected at all? They should be chosen based on their credentials, not picked in some over-expensive popularity contest.

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<div style="margin: 12px 0px; font-family: arial; color: #333333; background: #ffffff; border: solid 4px #e5e5e5; width: 100%; clear: left;"><div class="CM_CTB_Content_Wrap" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;background-color: #ffffff;"><div style="border-bottom: solid 1px #dcdcdc; white-space: nowrap; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: #eeeeee ;background-image: url(http://clipmarks.com/images/source-bg.gif); background-repeat: repeat-x; height: 24px; line-height: 24px; vertical-align: middle; padding-bottom: 4px; color: #666666; font-size: 10px;" ><a href="http://clipmarks.com/clip-to-blog/" title="see clips that are hot right now"><img src="http://content.clipmarks.com/blog_embed/a1c7e738-9256-43ea-baa9-806b1ac10a3f/33CC8007-0422-4DF8-B25A-A6EAC1306E09/" alt="" width="19" height="19" border="0" style="vertical-align: middle; margin: 0px 4px; display: inline; border: none; float:none;" /></a>clipped from <a title="http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2009/06/08/us/AP-US-Supreme-Court-Judicial-Ethics.html?_r=1&partner=rss&emc=rss" href="http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2009/06/08/us/AP-US-Supreme-Court-Judicial-Ethics.html?_r=1&partner=rss&emc=rss" style="font-size: 11px;">www.nytimes.com</a></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2009/06/08/us/AP-US-Supreme-Court-Judicial-Ethics.html?_r=1&partner=rss&emc=rss">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.</blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2009/06/08/us/AP-US-Supreme-Court-Judicial-Ethics.html?_r=1&partner=rss&emc=rss">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</blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2009/06/08/us/AP-US-Supreme-Court-Judicial-Ethics.html?_r=1&partner=rss&emc=rss"><P>judges are elected in 39 states and that candidates for the highest state courts have raised more than $168 million since 2000.</P><P>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 <A title="More articles about coal." href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/c/coal/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier">coal</A> company. Benjamin refused to step aside from the case, despite repeated requests, and was part of a 3-2 decision to overturn the verdict.</P></blockquote></div><div style="margin: 0px 6px 6px 4px;"><table style="font-size: 11px;border-spacing: 0px;padding: 0px;" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="100%"><tr><td style="background:transparent;border-width:0px;padding:0px;">&nbsp;</td><td align="right" style="background:transparent;border-width:0px;padding:0px;width:107px" width="107"><a href="http://clipmarks.com/share/33CC8007-0422-4DF8-B25A-A6EAC1306E09/blog/" title="blog or email this clip"><img src="http://content8.clipmarks.com/images/c2b-foot.png" border="0" alt="blog it" width="107" height="17" style="border-width:0px;padding:0px;margin:0px;" /></a></td></tr></table></div></div>

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