Top State Jurists Weigh In on W. Va. Recusal Issue
Corrected: As March oral arguments near in a much-watched U.S. Supreme Court case about the circumstances under which a judicial campaign contribution should require a jurist’s recusal, a substantial number of former state supreme court justices are urging the nation’s highest court to require a West Virginia colleague to step down in a controversal case.
In an amicus curiae brief filed by 27 former chief justices of various state supreme courts in Caperton v. Massey Coal Co., the top jurists argue there would be an appearance of impropriety if Chief Justice Brent Benjamin of the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals doesn’t step down from a $76 million business tort case involving the major contributor to his judicial campaign, reports the National Law Journal.
Although not every contribution requires recusal, the $3 million or so at issue here clearly could create an appearance of impropriety if Benjamin’s participation in the case is upheld, the jurists argue in the brief. “Amici believe that the only way to preserve a litigant’s due process right to adjudication before an impartial judge is to require that a judge recuse from a case not only when the judge consciously perceives the judge’s own partiality, but also when there exists a reasonable appearance of partiality or impropriety.”
The brief was written by attorney Charles Wiggins of Bainbridge Island, Wash., the legal publication notes.
The ABA also has filed an amicus curiae brief (PDF) in the case, as discussed in an earlier ABAJournal.com post.
Corrected at 12:15 p.m. on Jan. 8, 2009 to reflect that amicus signatories are not currently serving on the state court bench and that the campaign contributions at issue totaled about $3 million.
