Sandra Davis, Don Blankenship’s former secretary, leaves the federal courthouse in Charleston at lunchtime Tuesday. Photo by Joel Ebert.

Defense lawyers for former Massey Energy CEO Don Blankenship late this morning began their cross-examination of Blankenship’s former secretary, Sandra Davis.

Earlier in the day, prosecutors had continued their direct examination of Davis, using her testimony to play more audio recordings of Blankenship’s phone calls and to get a variety of Blankenship memos, emails and other documents admitted into evidence in the case.

Questioned by defense lawyer Eric Delinsky, Davis explained that she had previously worked with Blankenship starting in the early 1980s, and then became his personal executive assistant in 2002 at Massey Energy. She maintained his email account, managed his schedule and phone calls, and kept track of the flow of paper to and from the then-Massey CEO, jurors were told.

Davis agreed with Delinsky that Blankenship had high standards for Massey employees and became frustrated when workers did not meet those standards. She agreed with Delinsky’s characterization that Blankenship often sent notes that were angry, mean and rude.

“He sent notes like that to everybody when he got frustrated, didn’t he?” Delinsky asked. “Yes,” Davis answered.

Delinsky wanted to ask Davis if she enjoyed working for Blankenship, despite his angry notes and demanding management style, and asked her if her time working for him was personally and professionally a good experience. Assistant U.S. Attorney Greg McVey objected, saying such questions were irrelevant and beyond the scope of his direct examination. U.S. District Judge Irene Berger sustained the objection, stopping that line of questioning.

Also, Davis testified that she never saw or heard Blankenship tell anyone from Massey to violate mine safety and health standards.

Delinsky then began taking Davis through the defense’s own collection of Blankenship memos, having her identify ones in which Blankenship was proposing or insisting on additional safety programs at the company’s mines.

In one memo, Blankenship had handwritten “OK” next to a list of steps aimed at reducing Massey’s safety violations. In another, Blankenship had crossed out a proposed effort to reduce those violations by 20 percent and wrote in that Massey’s goal should be a 50 percent reduction in violations.

Judge Berger gave the jury a lunch break shortly afternoon and court is scheduled to resume at 1:25 p.m.