Brent Benjamin

Brent D. Benjamin was a justice on the Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia. He was elected to that court in a partisan election in November 2004. He served as chief justice in 2009 and 2013.^[1]

Benjamin's final term ended in 2016. He ran for re-election in 2016 but was defeated by attorney Beth Walker.^[2]

Education

Benjamin received his undergraduate degree from Ohio State University and his J.D. from Ohio State University Moritz College of Law in 1984.^[3]

Career

Prior to joining the court, Benjamin practiced law with the firm of Robinson and McElwee, PLLC, for twenty years.^[4]

Awards and associations

• 1999: Graduate, Leadership West Virginia
• Member, Hocking College Archaeological Mission^[4]

Elections

2016

Main article: West Virginia judicial elections, 2016

Benjamin ran to keep his seat on the West Virginia Supreme Court in 2016. He was joined in the race by former Attorney General of West Virginia Darrell V. McGraw, Jr., former state representative William Wooton, attorney Wayne King, and fellow Republican Beth Walker, who ran unsuccessfully for the West Virginia Supreme Court in 2008.^[5] Beth Walker was the winner in the five-way general election on May 10, 2016.

Election results

West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals, Justice Benjamin's Seat, 2016
Candidate	Vote %	Votes
Beth Walker	39.62%	162,245
Darrell V. McGraw, Jr.	23.08%	94,538
William Wooton	20.67%	84,641
Brent Benjamin Incumbent	12.47%	51,064
Wayne King	4.16%	17,054
Total Votes (100% Reporting)	409,542
Source: West Virginia Secretary of State Official Results

Campaign finance

At the time of his April 29 finance report, Justice Benjamin's reported total raised was $534,050.00, with $481,324.07 in expenditures.^[6]

Justice Benjamin, along with candidate William Wooton, applied for and received public financing under West Virginia's public campaign finance law. Candidate Beth Walker challenged their receipt of the funds, claiming that they missed filing deadlines that should preclude financing.^[7] The case was ultimately heard by the Supreme Court of Appeals with replacement justices, after all five sitting justices recused themselves.^[8] The substitute justices decided in favor of Wooten and Benjamin and against Walker.^[9] Benjamin accepted $483,500 from the state's Public Campaign Finance Fund.^[10] Bill Wooton accepted $475,000.^[10]

Advertisements

According to the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law, the Benjamin campaign spent $83,040 on ad time as of May 3, 2016.^[11]

Noteworthy cases

Harman Mining v. Massey Coal (2007)

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 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 opinion, touching on a wide variety of topics.^[12]

See this link to read the full text of Justice Benjamin's concurring opinion.

Harman petitioned to have his case heard before the U.S. Supreme Court.^[13]

See here for an MSNBC interview with Don Blankenship where he addresses Benjamin's refusal to recuse himself from the lawsuit.

The case was decided by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2009, with the Court finding that Benjamin should have recused himself, after benefiting from $3 million in campaign contributions. The ruling stated that Benjamin's involvement violated the 14th Amendment, denying the plaintiffs due process of law. In response, Benjamin said the Supreme Court's "new standard...now places more due process emphasis on perceptions and independent actions of external parties than on a judge's actual conduct or record."^[14]

Additional reading

• Legal Newsline, "Massey foe wants U.S. Supreme Court to put W. Va. Justice off case," July 28, 2008
• The New York Times, "Editorial: Too Generous," September 7, 2008

West Virginia Governor election (2011)

In early 2011, a supreme court battle ensued about when to elect the next governor of West Virginia.

Citizen Action Group (CAG) and local attorney Thorton Cooper stated that the state constitution and state code disagreed, and that a special election for governor should have been called quickly. Attorneys for Acting Governor Earl Ray Tomblin and House Speaker Richard Thompson disagreed about whether an election should have been called. Secretary of State Tennant's legal counsel took a neutral position.

Kathryn Bayless, counsel for CAG, said only the court could require the legislature and Tomblin to act, and that an election was needed as soon as possible. Bayless argued that Article 7, Section 16 of the state constitution was clear in saying there “shall” be a “new” election for governor in the event of an absence.^[15]

“The people of West Virginia want a new election, and that is what the Constitution provides for,” Bayless said.^[15]

Tomblin went on to win a full term in the 2012 elections.

Partisanship and ideology

See also: Political ideology of State Supreme Court Justices

Though West Virginia's supreme court justices are elected in nonpartisan elections beginning in 2016, Benjamin was elected as a Republican in the partisan election of 2004, which was his first election.

In October 2012, political science professors Adam Bonica and Michael Woodruff of Stanford University attempted to determine the partisan ideology of state supreme court justices. They created a scoring system in which a score above 0 indicated a more conservative-leaning ideology, while scores below 0 were more liberal.

Benjamin received a campaign finance score of 0.46, indicating a conservative ideological leaning. This was more conservative than the average score of -0.35 that justices received in West Virginia.

The study was based on data from campaign contributions by the judges themselves, the partisan leaning of those who contributed to the judges' campaigns, or, in the absence of elections, the ideology of the appointing body (governor or legislature). This study was not a definitive label of a justice, but an academic summary of various relevant factors.^[16]

Approach to the law

About his judicial philosophy, Justice Benjamin has said, "We should be umpires. We should call balls and strikes and we should never call them before the pitch is even made. That’s another way of saying, 'Courts shouldn’t be pro-this or pro-that.'"^[17]

Recent news

The link below is to the most recent stories in a Google news search for the terms West Virginia Justice Brent Benjamin. These results are automatically generated from Google. Ballotpedia does not curate or endorse these articles.

See also

• Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia
• Courts in West Virginia
• News: Lawyer Assistance Program pilot project approved, July 30, 2012

External links

• West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals, "Justice Brent D. Benjamin"
• Project Vote Smart, "Justice Brent D. Benjamin (WV)"
• American Radio Works, "Justice for Sale?"

Footnotes