The New York Times offered a front-page article Sunday on the pending U.S. Supreme Court appeal that faults Chief Justice Brent Benjamin for hearing a case involving a campaign benefactor's company.
"Don L. Blankenship, the chief executive of the nation’s fourth-biggest coal mining company, is not shy about putting his money where his mouth is when it comes to West Virginia politics," the lede says.
Here's the nut graph:
The case, one of the most important of the term, has the potential to change the way judicial elections are conducted and the way cases are heard in the 39 states that elect at least some of their judges. In many states, campaigns for court seats these days rival in both expense and venom what goes on in, say, a governor’s race. Yet it is commonplace in American courtrooms for judges to hear cases involving lawyers and litigants who have contributed to or spent money to support their campaigns.
The Charleston Gazette also had a Sunday story on the case, questioning some of the assertions leveled by Massey and
its allies.
Massey has argued in its brief that the two men are not friends and "there is no indication that Blankenship and Justice Benjamin even knew one another, before or after the election," but the article said "Blankenship and Benjamin have met" and cites a March 2006 dinner at Charleston's Embassy Suites Hotel.
The Massey brief also contends that "Blankenship only wanted to defeat incumbent Justice Warren McGraw," the article continues, "But on several campaign spending reports, Blankenship stated his purpose was to 'support' the candidacy of Brent Benjamin."
