| Blankenship's just one of many high-profile trials in WV history
By Joel Ebert, Federal Courts Reporter for the Gazette-Mail
Before Don Blankenship, there was John Brown, "Big Bill" Lias, Arch Moore and Harry Powers.
The former Massey Energy Co. CEO might not have much in common with a militant abolitionist, a rotund racketeering gangster, a three-term governor and a traveling vacuum salesman, but the trials of each man are among the most high-profile or nationally recognized cases in West Virginia history.
"All eyes will certainly be on the Blankenship trial because of the high profile of the case," said Billy Joe Peyton, a longtime history professor at West Virginia State University.
Peyton said West Virginia's most nationally significant trial was that of anti-slavery crusader John Brown, In October 1859, Brown and four other men appeared in court in Charles Town (in what was then Virginia), charged with the murder of five men, treason against the Commonwealth of Virginia and inciting.....
READ REST OF STORY: Blankenship's just one of many high-profile trials in WV history By Joel Ebert, Federal Courts Reporter for the Gazette-Mail | 
