Former Massey Energy CEO Don Blankenship was wrongly convicted and sent to prison because jury instructions made it too easy to conclude that he willfully violated safety rules at a West Virginia coal mine, his attorneys argued Wednesday.
Blankenship, 66, ran the coal company that owned West Virginia's Upper Big Branch mine, where a 2010 explosion killed 29 men. He's currently serving a one-year sentence after being convicted of misdemeanor conspiracy for what prosecutors call a series of willful safety violations before the blast.
Blankenship's attorneys filed a 94-page brief to the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond contesting multiple aspects of his conviction, but Wednesday's oral argument before a three-judge panel focused exclusively on the jury instructions.
