Jurors in the Don Blankenship trial want to listen again to recordings of phone calls in which the former Massey Energy CEO talks about his personal wealth, Massey's stock prices, and his fear that a memo outlining a Massey insider's concerns about safety at Massey mines would be made public and used in a lawsuit against the company.
U.S. District Judge Irene Berger told jurors late Wednesday afternoon that she would have court technology staff provide them with equipment to listen to CDs of the calls that were provided to the jury as part of the evidence introduced during the 24 days of testimony in the landmark trial.
During a discussion with jurors in open court at about 4:40 p.m., Berger said that the jury had sent her a note asking if they could listen to the calls again. Jurors then went home for the day after deliberating for a little more than six hours.
Jurors - eight women and four men - are to return to the Robert C. Byrd United States Courthouse at 9 a.m. today to resume their work.
Blankenship, 65, faces three felony counts that carry a statutory maximum of 30 years in prison.
He is charged with conspiring to violate federal mine safety and health standards and defraud the U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration by obstructing MSHA inspections. He also is charged with making a false statement and with securities fraud in connection with a statement issued after the mine explosion that said Massey did not condone safety violations and tried to comply with all rules at all times. Prosecutors allege that Blankenship engineered the statement to try to stop the company's stock price from plummeting.
During trial, prosecutors played for jurors a series of recordings that Blankenship made of his own phone calls. Investigators obtained the recordings from Alpha Natural Resources, which had bought Massey in June 2011. Defense attorneys had fought a legal battle to get to play their own selection of Blankenship calls - depicting him as concerned about safety and reducing violations - but the defense rested its case before putting on any witnesses or its own evidence.
Both sides declined when Berger asked if the prosecution and defense wanted to be informed by the court whenever jurors took any sort of break.
"We would only want to be notified if there is a substantive note," said lead defense lawyer Bill Taylor.
While the jury deliberates, U.S. Attorney Booth Goodwin's team has returned to its offices in the courthouse. Blankenship and the defense team have left the building. News reporters and members of the families of miners who died at Upper Big Branch have been awaiting word from the jury in a courthouse lobby, after court security closed the courtroom.
Check the Gazette-Mail's Coal Tattoo blog for frequent updates on testimony in the Blankenship case, and visit the Blankenship trial page for a timeline, exhibits and other features.
Reach Ken Ward Jr. at kward@wvgazettemail.com, 304-348-1702 or follow @kenwardjr on Twitter.