ABA Among Five Groups Urging High Court to Hear Judicial Recusal Case
The American Bar Association is urging the U.S. Supreme Court to decide whether the due process clause limits a judge’s ability to hear a case after receiving substantial contributions from a litigant.
The ABA is asking the Supreme Court to hear an appeal that claims West Virginia Supreme Court Justice Brent Benjamin should have recused himself in a business interference case because of $3 million in campaign contributions made by a litigant, the chief executive officer of a coal company.
Benjamin cast the deciding vote in the case and overturned a $50 million verdict against the CEO’s company, Massey Energy Co. The amount at stake has risen to more than $76 million with interest.
Four other legal groups are also asking the court to hear the case, including the Brennan Center for Justice, according to the Charleston Gazette and the Associated Press.
The $3 million in campaign contributions by Massey CEO Don Blankenship represents more than 60 percent of the total money spent on Benjamin’s campaign, the ABA amicus brief says (PDF).
“This case presents an important and unresolved question regarding an issue of increasing concern across this country—namely, whether the constitutional right to due process places limits upon a judge’s consideration of a legal matter in which one party was a substantial contributor to that judge’s election to the bench,” the ABA amicus brief says.
The ABA contends the conduct of Benjamin creates an appearance of impropriety that would violate Canon 1 of the ABA Model Code of Judicial Conduct. It also argues that the case rises to one of constitutional concern. “If the facts of this case do not implicate due process concerns, then few judicial contribution cases ever will,” the brief says.
Rule 2.11(A) of the ABA Model Code requires disqualification when a judge receives campaign contributions over a certain limit that is set by a state. Only two states have adopted such an approach, and West Virginia is not one of them. But the ABA brief maintains that implicit in its code is the view that fundamental fairness concerns are triggered at some level of high campaign contributions.
