Brent Benjamin
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Brent D. Benjamin is a justice on the Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia. He was elected to a full twelve-year term on the Supreme Court of Appeals in November 2004. He was elected as a Republican in a partisan election.
Legal Background
Justice Benjamin is a graduate of The Ohio State University, from which he holds both a B.A. and J.D.
Legal Career
Before his election, he was a principal attorney with Robinson and McElwee, PLLC in Charleston. His 20-year practice at that firm involved general civil litigation in state and federal courts, including toxic torts and complex litigation. His civil rights practice focused on protecting children from physical and sexual abuse. He has practiced in the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, the United States District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia, the Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia, and the Commonwealth of Kentucky Supreme Court. Since his election, Justice Benjamin has been a regular presenter and instructor in a variety of public forums and legal conferences, including his recent speech on judicial elections at the National Press Club, in Washington D.C.
Harman Mining v. Massey Coal case
In November 2007, the Supreme Court of Appeals ruled in favor of Massey Coal, reversing a $50 million award from the county court. Subsequently, photographs surfaced of Justice Spike Maynard and Massey CEO Blankenship on vacation in Monaco. The two, lifelong friends from Mingo County, said they simply were vacationing at the same place at the same time, and Maynard provided documentation to show he paid his own way. Still, the justices voted unanimously to rehear Harman's case.
Maynard voluntarily recused himself from all Massey cases, and Harman demanded Justice Benjamin also step down. Benjamin refused, and on July 28 the Court ruled in the Harman Mining case against Massey Coal. Instead of simply stating his specific reasons for voting in the majority of a 3-2 vote when Massey's appeal of a $50 million verdict in favor of Caperton's company proved successful, the acting chief justice on the case issued a 58-page treatise, touching on a number of other topics, such as the state of the state Supreme Court, justice recusals and disqualifications, how West Virginia selects judges, the 2004 Supreme Court election, political action groups and campaign contributions.[1]
See this link to read the full text of Justice Benjamin's concurring opinion.
Harman is currently asking the U.S. Supreme Court to rule that Benjamin should have stepped down from the Massey case.[2]
According to Justin D. Anderson of the Charleston Daily Mail, Benjamin claims that "the Harman lawyers haven't mentioned many other facts about the election that he considers more crucial to his win than the anti-McGraw ads placed by the campaign that called itself "And For the Sake of the Kids."[3]
See here for a MSNBC interview with Don Blankenship where he addresses Benjamin's refusal to recuse himself from a current lawsuit involving Massey Energy.
Campaign Contributions
The business community makes up Justice Benjamin's largest source of campaign contributions.[4]
