Supreme Court’s Massey-Caperton ruling muddies the waters, rather than bringing clarity

Press Release

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Gary Abernathy

Monday, June 08, 2009 304-768-0493

Supreme Court’s Massey-Caperton ruling muddies the waters, rather than bringing clarity

CHARLESTON, W. Va. – The United States Supreme Court’s decision today on the Massey-Caperton case has far-reaching implications regarding independent expenditures on state Supreme Court races that will ultimately affect all sides of past and future elections, state GOP Chairman Doug McKinney said today.

McKinney said that one of the most important distinctions to be made in today’s decision is that Chief Justice Brent Benjamin’s ability to remain impartial was not questioned by the justices. Instead, justices focused on the “perception” of bias, which is a standard that will be difficult to determine and likely lead to a flood of recusal requests.

“The Supreme Court has today established a new recusal standard based on perception rather than on actual bias,” said McKinney. “The result will likely be a flood of recusal requests that will further create a bottleneck of backed up cases in our judicial system.”

The narrow 5-4 decision seems to create another “I know it when I see it” standard much like a previous landmark decision on pornography cases, McKinney said.

“By failing to define exact standards for recusal, the court has unfortunately opened a can of worms that will simply lead to more confusion and debate,” said McKinney.

As Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in the dissent, “This will inevitably lead to an increase in allegations that judges are biased, however groundless those charges may be. The end result will do far more to erode public confidence in judicial impartiality than an isolated failure to recuse in a particular case.”

McKinney noted that even Justice Anthony Kennedy, writing for the majority, made it clear that the court was not impugning Justice Benjamin’s integrity or impartiality.

As Kennedy wrote of Benjamin, “We do not question his subjective findings of impartiality and propriety. Nor do we determine whether there was actual bias.”

Said McKinney, “By admitting that it is not questioning Justice Benjamin’s impartiality and propriety, or whether there they are was actual bias, the court is unfortunately muddying the waters even further, rather than bringing clarity to the issue.”

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Paid for by the West Virginia Republican Party