CHARLESTON, W.Va. — It may have been wishful thinking when former Massey Energy coal group president Chris Blanchard quickly got up and left U.S. District Judge Irene Berger’s courtroom Friday evening after Assistant U.S. Prosecutor Steve Ruby said he had no further questions.
A few moments later he came back into the courtroom. He had yet to be formally excused by the judge. You can’t blame Blanchard, he’d been on the stand for parts of seven days in the Don Blankenship criminal trial taking place in Chalreston. And there may be more time next week.
Blankenship’s lead attorney Bill Taylor asked Judge Berger to allow the defense to ask Blanchard additional questions next week under re-cross examination, something Berger hasn’t allowed in the trial up until this time. Taylor argued Ruby introduced more than 40 new exhibits and probed into other new areas in his redirect examination of Blanchard. Judge Berger said she’ll make a decision over the weekend.
Blankenship, 65, the former CEO of Massey Energy, is charged with conspiring to break federal mine safety laws at the Upper Big Branch mine in favor of production. It’s also alleged he lied to investment regulators after the April 2010 explosion at UBB that killed 29 miners. Blankenship is not charged with causing the explosion.
Ruby finished questioning Blanchard, who ran UBB as president of the Marfork Coal Group, by focusing on the increasing number of safety violations at UBB between 2006-2010. Ruby pointed to handwritten comments on a memo from Blankenship concerning additional workers to combat safety problems.
“So why add more? Neither the people you have or you will do their jobs,” Blankenship wrote.
On Friday morning, Ruby introduced a stack of citations from the Mine Safety and Health Administration for “serious and substantial” violations recorded at UBB.
Those citations dealt with coal dust, roof controls and ventilation.
In none of those cases could Blanchard cite examples of discipline for himself or anyone else, contradicting several of the arguments Taylor had tried to make during his marathon cross examination of Blanchard earlier this week.
At one point, Ruby referenced the 2006 underground mine fire at Aracoma Coal’s Alma No. 1 Mine in Logan County, a former Massey mine, that killed two coal miners. A defense objection kept Ruby from discussing the details of what happened there, but he was able to ask Blanchard about the law changes that followed, including those dealing with belt air.
During cross examination, Blanchard was questioned at length about the 2009 ventilation plan for UBB that Massey had submitted, and MSHA later rejected, that included the use of belt air to ventilate the longwall face.
Ruby asked about the limits those law changes put on the use of belt air in mine ventilation. “A justification had to be provided,” Blanchard testified.
On redirect, Ruby also revisited several of the UBB staffing charts Taylor had originally introduced to counter prosecution claims that UBB was understaffed.
Blanchard testified Friday that total staffing numbers from those charts included people not working in the mine itself, those not assigned to specific tasks like belt work or contractors who were not full Massey members.
Ruby argued against allowing Blanchard to further testify next week.
“The defense can call him as their own witness,” Ruby told Judge Berger.
He also said much of what Blanchard said on cross examination about not being in a conspiracy with Blankenship to break safety laws was a “surprise” to the prosecution, given his prior grand jury testimony.
Judge Berger told both sides she would alert them of her decision by email sometime before next Tuesday. There is no court scheduled for Monday.
Blankenship’s trial began on Oct. 1 with jury selection and family members of several of the miners who died at the Raleigh County mine site have been sitting in the front row daily to hear the testimony.