Federal prosecutors have asked the US Supreme Court to turn down former coal executive Don Blankenship's appeal of his conviction for conspiracy to violate mine safety standards. The Justice Department on 25 August told the court that jurors in Blankenship's trial received proper instructions in how to consider whether he willfully violated the law before, during and immediately after the Upper Big Branch mine ex?plosion, and that the 4th US Circuit Court of Appeals appro?priately upheld that finding. Prosecutors do not have to prove that Biankenship knew he was violating the law, they just need to show that he had reason to know the standards and was intentionally indifferent to them, the department said.
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