Remember Spike Maynard? He was the chief justice of the West Virginia Supreme Court, the one caught canoodling around the Caribbean with mountaintop mining executive Don Blankenship — and some young women to whom, suffice to say, they were not betrothed — while Blankenship’s company, Massey Energy, had a case before the court. Maynard said he just happened to run into Blankenship in Monaco. (These things happen, right?)
Spike got booted from that case, but he dragged an anti-Massey judge with him, so Massey ended up winning anyway.
Now the universe has surprised everyone by coughing up a little justice: Maynard has lost his reelection bid.
Said his opponent, newly bejudged and bewildered Menis Ketchum, “I did not expect to do near as well as I did.” The results are “sending the message that the public wants a court that is judicial.”
So true.
