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.”