SCOTUS: Due process required recusal in "judge for sale" case

The Supreme Court held 5-4 that a West Virginia Supreme Court justice’s failure to recuse himself from a big coal case violated due process, where the defendant’s principal officer played a substantial role in electing him to the bench.

 The Court, per Justice Kennedy, held that recusal is constitutionally required when objective circumstances indicate a “probability of actual bias.” This risk is unacceptably high, the court concluded, “when a person with a personal stake in a particular case had a significant and disproportionate influence in placing the judge on the case by raising funds or directing the judge’s election campaign when the case was pending or imminent.” Caperton v. Massey Coal Co., Inc., --- S.Ct. ----, 2009 WL 1576573 (June 8, 2009) (No. 08-22). Chief Justice Roberts dissented, joined by Justices Scalia, Thomas and Alito.

 

                Caperton obtained a $50 million verdict against Massey Coal. While the case was pending, Massey’s chairman spent $3 million to elect Brent Benjamin to the state’s highest court. Benjamin twice refused to recuse himself, and the court reversed the verdict by a 3-2 vote.

 

The Court has previously required recusal in two situations: 1) when the judge has a financial interest in the case, e.g., Ward v. Monroeville, 409 U. S. 57 (1972); and 2) when a defendant in criminal contempt proceedings is tried by the same judge he is charged with reviling, e.g., Mayberry v. Pennsylvania, 400 U. S. 455, 466 (1971). The Court characterized these decisions as applying broad due-process principles to the particular, objective facts of each case. The Court said that several factors should be considered in evaluating recusal motions based on election activity, including “the contribution’s relative size in comparison to the total amount of money contributed to the campaign, the total amount spent in the election, and the apparent effect such contribution had on the outcome of the election.”

 

The Court stressed that this case was an “unusual” and “extreme” one, and that “most disputes over disqualification will be resolved without resort to the Constitution.”

 

In dissent, Chief Justice Roberts argued constitutionally-required recusal should be limited to the limited circumstances of prior cases, and that the Court’s “amorphous” standard would lead to a flood of litigation and actually bring the courts into further disrepute. Roberts includes a list of 40 questions that, he said, the Court left unanswered about how its rule would apply in the future – ranging from the obvious “How much money is too much money?” to the more tendentious “Is the due process analysis less probing for incumbent judges than for challengers?” Due to its “inherently boundless nature,” Roberts concluded that the Court’s “cure is worse than the disease.” In a short dissent, Scalia added a short dissent, emphasizing his preference for bright-line constitutional rules over malleable standards.