Court Says Judges Must Avoid Appearance Of Bias

The case now returns to the West Virginia court for a new hearing.

"We are confident that the Harman case was properly decided by the West Virginia Supreme Court initially and believe that any new examination of the same facts and same laws by new justices should yield the same result as before" said Massey vice president Shane Harvey, also the company's top lawyer.

The dissenters said the court's inability or unwillingness to lay out clear rules for when judges must step aside will provoke endless lawsuits aimed at forcing judges off cases.

"It is an old cliche, but sometimes the cure is worse than the disease," Roberts said. He wrote that it is not clear that Blankenship's money even affected the outcome of the election.

"I would give the voters of West Virginia more credit than that," he said.

Both Scalia and Roberts said that the ruling would end up undermining confidence in the judicial system, not enhancing it as the majority contended.

Former Colorado Supreme Court Justice Rebecca Love Kourlis, an advocate for ending partisan election of judges, agreed with the dissenters that more lawsuits could arise from Monday's ruling. "From my perspective, that's a good thing because it will make some states consider moving to merit selection," Kourlis said.