This post is from Joel Ebert, who is covering the Don Blankenship trial with Ken Ward Jr.

As jury selection continues with the Don Blankenship trial, there’s something to note about the latest filings.

It appears there may be some filings that are not posted in the court’s system.

The court system provides a document number for every single document associated with a case. The documents generally are given a number as they are filed.

For example document a document filed recently has a higher number than a document filed two months ago.

Looking at the most recently filed documents, two are missing – documents 405 and 409.

As of this posting, the court has not filed a voir dire transcript from Friday’s jury selection process.

After the incident that occurred last week – when Thursday’s voir dire transcript was temporarily available on a public computer in the clerk’s office – one wonders whether or not one of the missing numbers (405 or 409) could be the voir dire transcript.

This isn’t the first time a document number has been skipped in the Blankenship filings.

By my count, there have been 23 document numbers that have been skipped.

It is possible the document numbers that don’t appear could be trial subpoenas or something to do with the grand jury. There is no real way to find out what these potential documents are.

UPDATED:

When I contacted the clerk’s office, they directed my inquiries into the missing documents to Karen Sword, a judicial assistant for Judge Irene Berger.

Sword said although she was not sure why document 405 or 409 were available in the court’s system, she said it is possible they are sealed documents.

When I pointed out that sealed documents normally have a motion from one of the parties (prosecution or defense) and that is listed in the court’s system, Sword said documents can also be sealed by the Court.

Sword did not know whether either potential document 405 or 409 were copies of Friday’s voir dire transcript.