CHARLESTON, W.Va. — The lead attorney for the Don Blankenship criminal defense team was all smiles as he left the Byrd Federal Courthouse in Charleston Tuesday evening following another marathon day of cross-examination of former Massey Energy coal group president Chris Blanchard.
Bill Taylor may be smiling because he’s managed to use Blanchard, a prosecution witness, to get Blankenship’s defense across, according to MetroNews legal analyst Harvey Peyton.
“A defense attorney’s dream,” Peyton said.
Blanchard has been on the stand now for parts of 4 days, most of that time spent answering questions from Taylor. The Washington, D.C.-based attorney told MetroNews Tuesday evening the cross-examination is almost done. He didn’t apologize for 17-plus hours of cross-examination.
“The defense’s case is substantial,” he said.
The focus of the questioning has been on whether or not Blankenship ever conspired with Blanchard to skirt mine safety laws at the Upper Big Branch mine where Blanchard was in charge.
Taylor sets up a scenario using various documents including company memos and asks Blanchard if there was a conspiracy to which he answers, “no sir.”
“He probably said ‘yes sir’ or ‘no sir’ 200 times today,” Peyton said.
Blankenship is accused of conspiring to violate mandatory mine safety regulations and lying about Massey’s safety practices after the UBB Disaster.
On Tuesday morning, Blanchard testified that he and other Performance officials, but not Blankenship, had met with MSHA in March 2010 — less than a month before the explosion that killed 29 coal miners — to talk about the ventilation plan at UBB.
“We disagreed about what needed to be done,” Blanchard told the jury of what happened at that meeting. He said MSHA inspectors thought the air at UBB was moving improperly over the longwall face.
During an MSHA blitz at UBB the following day, Blanchard said federal inspectors found out “they were wrong.”
Because UBB could not be cited for ventilation issues at the longwall at that time, Blanchard claimed during his testimony that MSHA officials “looked until they found other things they could write.” In all, 17 citations were issued during the March 9, 2010 blitz.
Taylor’s questioning of Blanchard on the UBB ventilation plan was limited because U.S. District Judge Irene Berger has previously ruled inadmissible in the trial “claims that federal mine safety regulations were incorrect, misguided, or imprudent.”
Blankenship’s defense had wanted to attempt to make the case that Massey disagreed with MSHA’s use of belt air in its ventilation plan at UBB, an argument Berger’s repeatedly rejected.
In all, the defense introduced more than three dozen documents as evidence on Tuesday morning.
Those documents included dozens of MSHA citations in an attempt to show that citations were often for minor issues, like improperly disposed of lunch wrappers, and also to illustrate that many of the problems identified and cited at UBB were quickly addressed, within a matter of minutes at times.
Taylor asked, “Did you run (UBB) illegally?”
“No, sir,” answered Blanchard who’d earlier agreed with Taylor that it would be “impossible” to eliminate all mine citations because, he testified, too many citations are “subjective.”
Also among the documents were six memos, timelines and e-mails dealing with water that had built up behind UBB’s longwall in late 2009, including an update on ongoing water pumping at the site. One of those documents indicated a foreman was disciplined because of the water issue.
Blanchard was first called as the prosecution’s 21st witness last Thursday afternoon. By early Tuesday afternoon, he had spent nearly 20 hours on the witness stand and was still subject to redirect from Steve Ruby, assistant U.S. attorney.
Tuesday was the 14th day of testimony in the Blankenship trial that opened with jury selection on Oct. 1.