November 3, 2004

Benjamin takes seat

By Toby Coleman
Staff writer

Brent Benjamin booted Justice Warren McGraw off the state Supreme Court Tuesday. With 1,616 of 1,965 precincts reporting, he outpolled the incumbent Democrat with 307,165 votes to 279,103.

Benjamin said he will dedicate his 12-year term

“to following the law of West Virginia” and “making certain everyone has a fair and equal opportunity for justice with no favoritism for any one group or individual.”

Benjamin rode to victory on the crest of an unprecedented wave of negative ads financed largely by Massey Energy Chief Executive Officer Don Blankenship. Blankenship estimated today that he dumped between $3 million and $3.5 million into the campaign.

“You just can’t compete with that kind of money,” said McGraw’s son Randolph, who spoke for his father after the returns came in. “West Virginia and the entire country will have to look seriously at election reform because ordinary men and women don’t stand a chance.”

Benjamin will change the face of the state’s highest court.

The 47-year-old Charleston lawyer is not tied to labor unions and plaintiffs’ lawyers as McGraw was. During the election, his opponents said he would rule for Blankenship and other businessmen who helped his cause.

After his victory speech in the Capitol Roasters coffee shop in downtown Charleston, Benjamin told reporters that he will be a fair judge who “will follow the law and hopefully bring predictability and stability to our legal system.”

“I can tell you I am not bought by anybody,” he said.

Meanwhile, in a hotel bar a few blocks away, Blankenship celebrated Benjamin’s victory with a small group of people who included Justice Spike Maynard.

Blankenship, a West Virginia native who owns a house in Mingo County, gave more than $1.7 million to the special interest group And for the Sake of the Kids to run ads slamming McGraw for voting to give a convicted sex offender another shot at probation. In the waning days of election, Blankenship personally financed recorded messages urging West Virginians to vote for Benjamin.

He said he spent his money to beat McGraw, not buy a Supreme Court justice for himself or Massey.

“I think anytime you have to deal with the kind of evil the McGraws represent, you have to do what the law allows you to do,” he said. “I’ve been dealing for 22 years with the evil of the politics of the judicial system in West Virginia. I’m just glad we took a step toward a fairer system.”

In the coming years, the Supreme Court will examine a number of cases involving Massey, including the company’s appeal of a more than $60 million jury verdict against it.

Blankenship said he does not expect that his donations will win his company Benjamin’s vote.

“I think he will be more fair, simply because I don’t think anyone will be less fair,” Blankenship said of Benjamin.

Blankenship is not the only person to dump money into the race. A Wheeling-based doctors’ group gave $750,000 to And for the Sake of the Kids, and a group of plaintiffs’ lawyers gave at least $500,000 to the pro-McGraw special interest group, West Virginia Consumers for Justice.

The special interest groups filled the airwaves with commercials about a March state Supreme Court decision that gave a convicted sex offender another chance at probation.

Benjamin’s supporters called McGraw “radical” and “too soft on crime” because he supported the decision. McGraw’s supporters called Benjamin a political opportunist who used the case to distort his opponent’s tough-on-crime record.

Some lawyers’ groups are already worrying that the big-money, negative campaign mounted by Benjamin, McGraw and their supporters will hurt the judicial system.

“The nature and tenor of some of the campaigning and advertising for both candidates neither enhances the status of the judiciary nor the credibility of our system with the public at large,” the Bar said in a resolution issued last month.

To contact staff writer Toby Coleman, use e-mail or call 348-5156.