The Los Angeles County Bar Blog

Caperton v. A.T. Massey Coal

The recent U.S. Supreme Court decision in Caperton v. A.T. Massey Coal, et al. (08-22) concerned whether a judge who accepted $3 million in campaign contributions from a defendant should recuse himself. the Blog of Legal Times reports "In his forceful dissent Monday in the Caperton v. Massey Coal Co. case, Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. cited the 1989 case of U.S. v. Halper, which was Roberts' first oral argument before the high court, assigned to him by his mentor Chief Justice William Rehnquist." and Jonathan Turley reports: "A divided court voted 5-4 in Caperton v. A.T. Massey Coal, et al. (08-22) that West Virginia Justice Brent D. Benjmain violated the constitution by sitting on a case involving the major donor in his campaign, A.T. Massey's chief executive, Don Blankenship."

Two Heroes

According to Michael T. Kaufman of the New York Times, "Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, whose stubborn, lonely and combative literary struggles gained the force of prophecy...died late on Sunday at the age of 89 in Moscow."

And according to LA Observed, Juan Abel Escalante, a Los Angeles County sheriff's deputy assigned to the Men's Central Jail, was shot and killed Saturday morning outside his family's home near the intersection of Aragon and Thorpe in Cypress Park. The LA Times story.