Judge denies Don Blankenship’s request to have his mine safety conviction overturned

CHARLESTON, W.Va. — U.S. District Judge Irene Berger has tossed out ex-coal operator Don Blankenship’s quest to overturn his 2015 conviction that led to a year in jail.

Judge Irene Berger

Berger’s 37-page ruling filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia runs counter to the earlier recommendation of U.S. Magistrate Judge Omar Aboulhosn.

Aboulhosn in August recommended throwing out Blankenship’s conviction on a misdemeanor mine safety conspiracy charge that was related to the 2010 explosion of the Upper Big Branch mine, which killed 29 workers.

Aboulhosn cited errors and evidence that had not been disclosed in preparation for the trial that caused him to “not have confidence in the verdict.”

Berger looked at the same material and agreed that it had not been made available.

But she determined that much of it could was  excluded by court rulings, exhaustively covered at trial or immaterial to the charge. Blankenship’s lawyers could have obtained much of the material through other sources, including their own interview, she wrote.

“Having considered all of the arguments made by the Movant, the nature and content of the undisclosed documents, the substantive evidence presented at trial and the applicable law, the Court finds the Movant has failed to meet his burden to establish that a reasonable probability exists that the outcome of the trial might have been different had the suppressed evidence been disclosed prior to trial,” Berger wrote.

“Specifically, after thorough review, nothing has been presented to undermine confidence in the jury’s verdict.”

The judge did write that the sheer amount of undisclosed material was disturbing.

“Again, it is undisputed that the United States failed to disclose documents and that this failure is violative of Department of Justice policy and the rules of discovery,” Berger wrote. “The sheer number of undisclosed documents is troubling.”

Booth Goodwin

The U.S. Attorney whose office handled the case, Booth Goodwin, stated today that he was satisfied by Berger’s ruling. Goodwin is now in private practice.

“The Court’s order was incredibly thorough, well-reasoned and reached the correct result,” Goodwin stated.

“It is clear that the Court was greatly aided by the fact that she was the presiding judge at trial and, as such, she did not need to rely simply on the cold record or representations of the defendant, but also what she directly observed.”



Don Blankenship (Text)

Blankenship, having already served out his sentence, is running for president on the Constitution Party ticket. Besides spending a year in jail, he also had to pay a $250,000 fine and serve one year of supervised release.

Blankenship was not charged with causing the Upper Big Branch explosion but was accused of overseeing a culture of disregard for safety that led to the tragedy.

The conspiracy involved advance warnings of mine inspectors, cheating on dust samples and concealing safety warnings.

The six-week trial concluded as a close call for the jury, which deliberated for nine days and twice told Judge Berger that it could not agree on a verdict. Finally, Judge Berger issued an “Allen charge” to push for a verdict.

On April 18, 2018, while Blankenship was gearing up for a run for U.S. Senate, his attorneys filed a motion to vacate the conviction. The lawyers contended that newly-uncovered evidence could have swayed the jury.





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