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Completing Caperton And Clarifying Common Sense Through Using The Right Standard For Constitutional Judicial Recusal, Jeffrey W. Stempel

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In Caperton v. A.T. Massey Coal Co., the U.S. Supreme Court vacated a state supreme court decision in which a justice who had received $3 million in campaign support from a litigant cast the deciding vote to relieve the litigant of a $50 million liability. The Court reached this result, one I view as compelled by common sense, through a 5-4 vote, with the dissenters, led by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Antonin Scalia, minimizing the danger of biased judging presented by the situation and questioning the practical feasibility of the Court's approach as well as the wisdom of …