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If You Speak Up, Must You Stand Down: The Limits Of Caperton, Richard M. Esenberg

Richard M Esenberg

In Caperton v. A.T. Massey Coal Company, the United States Supreme Court announced a broad duty of judges to recuse themselves when they have an interest in connection with a case that creates an “unconstitutional potential for bias.” This potential may exist when “under a realistic appraisal of psychological tendencies and human weakness,” a judge may be unable to “hold the balance nice, clear and true.” In Caperton itself, a state supreme court justice was held to have a duty to recuse himself from a case involving a company whose CEO had spent approximately three million dollars in support of …