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Friday, January 18, 2008

W.Va. justice removes himself from case after photos connected him to controversial coal man

Elliott "Spike" Maynard, the chief justice of the West Virginia Supreme Court, has removed himself from a case involving Massey Energy Co. after photos showed him alongside the company's top executive, Don Blankenship, during a Monaco vacation, reports Lawrence Messina of The Associated Press. (One of those photos is at left, with Blankenship in sunglasses.)

"Maynard helped form a 3-2 majority in November that overturned a multimillion-dollar judgment against Richmond, Va.-based Massey that another company, Harman Mining, and its president, Hugh Caperton, had won in a contract dispute," Messina writes. "Caperton had asked Maynard to step down from the case before the high court reconsiders that ruling. With interest, the damages are worth $76.3 million." (Read more)

Paul J. Nyden of The Charleston Gazette first reported on the photos after Caperton filed them with the state Supreme Court on Monday. The AP ran a story earlier this week on how the photo flap highlighted the small-town nature of the state, saying, "In a state of about 1.8 million people, those in West Virginia’s universe of officeholders, bureaucrats and business leaders often joke about a single degree of separation between them."

In 2004, Blankenship bankrolled a multi-million dollar campaign that replaced a Democratic justice of the Supreme Court with a Republican, and he has said he plans to do likewise this year. However, his effort to finance a Republican takeover of the state legislature in 2006 failed. For other news on Massey, see item below.

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