“That's not my jet. That's my husband's jet.”
If she's to be believed, West Virginia Supreme Court Chief Justice Robin Jean Davis and her attorney husband Scott Segal are different from most couples. What's his is his, and what's hers is hers.
The typical marital reality is husbands and wives share assets, large and small, whether they live in a community-property state or not. But, apparently, that’s not so in the Davis-Segal household.
That's why Davis didn't bother to disclose her husband's sale of a million-dollar Lear jet to Hattiesburg, Miss., attorney Michael Fuller, who donated to – and campaigned for contributions to – Davis’ re-election in 2012, while handling a high-profile nursing home abuse case headed for the high court. Nor did Davis recuse herself when the case in question came before the court.
ABC News recently aired a story about this unusual (for most people) arrangement on World News Tonight and Nightline. The story was headlined: “Lear Jet Justice in West Virginia? A ‘Circus Masquerading as a Court.’”
“With regards to my husband’s plane, let me … be abundantly clear, the plane is owned by my husband,” Davis told ABC News, insisting that “it never occurred to me for a moment to consider that this would be a reason for recusal because it was a distant transaction.”
Even the proverbial “sucker born every minute” would have a hard time buying that dodge.
Is Robin Davis the ringmaster in “a circus masquerading as a court”?
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