Published: October 28, 2016 |

Don Blakenship.
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Attorneys for Don Blankenship and the federal government are back in court this week as the former coal operator appeals his misdemeanor conviction in connection with the deadliest U.S. mine disaster in four decades.

Blankenship reported to a California federal prison May 12 to begin serving the maximum one-year sentence for conspiring to willfully violate safety standards at West Virginia’s Upper Big Branch mine before the 2010 explosion that killed 29 men.

Defense attorneys say the jury pool was biased, the prosecution was politically motivated and the judge’s rulings were unfair.

Other coal mining executives have a different concern: Industry groups from Illinois, Ohio and West Virginia filed a brief urging the appeals court to avoid setting a precedent they fear could unfairly expose them and other mining leaders to criminal conspiracy charges. We “cannot sit idly by and allow the expansion of criminal law to the point that mere involvement of company management in certain affairs can serve as a basis, in whole or in part, for criminal prosecution,” they wrote.

Blankenship’s lead attorney sidestepped a question about his prospects of winning the appeal ahead of Wednesday’s arguments before a three-judge panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Va.

“It does not matter how I feel,” Bill Taylor said in an email. “What matters is what the judges feel.”

Blogging from behind bars, a defiant Blankenship declared himself an “American political prisoner.”

Source: (October 25, 2016) The Associated Press

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