The Supreme Court just handed down its verdict in the Caperton v. Massey case.
For a quick recap, the Massey Coal company lost a lawsuit, and $50M. Knowing the case would be appealed, the company put $3M into the campaign of challenger Benjamin, more than all other donors combined. Benjamin won, and four times declined to recuse himself from the case. Judge Benjamin overturned the $50M judgement. The Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia upheld Benjamin’s decisions.
In a 5-4 decision, the high court overturned that decision, and the case will return to West Virginia without Judge Benjamin.
In his dissent, Judge Roberts’ entire line of reasoning is essentially that,”the standard the majority articulates—“probability of bias”—fails
to provide clear, workable guidance for future cases.”
The, quite frankly, blows me away. Allow me to translate: “We do not know how to remake the law, so we will not try.”
It is very simple, Justice Roberts: take a semi-random set of twelve people, and if, upon hearing the facts of the case, they decide that there is a “probability of bias,” then the judge must recuse himself. Just for fun, let us call this group of people a “jury.”





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