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Judge Won’t Allow Libby Witnesses in W.R. Grace Trial
By asbestoshub | February 18, 2009
The citizens of Libby, Montana must be fuming. Hundreds of people there have died of asbestos-related disease. Thousands more are showing signs of the disease.
Their entire town has been declared a Superfund site, and it hasn’t been entirely cleaned up yet. Yet in early February, 2009, Judge Donald Molloy ruled that “there are no crime victims identifiable” in the environmental-crimes case against W.R. Grace & Co.
Say what?
In yet another well-written article from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, a news source that has been following and reporting on developments in Libby, Montana since 1999 in a series called “An Uncivil Action,” it was reported that:
“That is an outrageous and mind-boggling statement,” said Dr. Brad Black, who heads Libby’s medical clinic for asbestos victims, which has seen about 2,600 patients.
Grace operated the Zonolite Mountain vermiculite mine near Libby for decades, and even though the company knew the miners were being exposed to asbestos, nobody said a word. Instead they let their workers be exposed to deadly asbestos fibers and then transport them home, where the miners’ families were sickened. Now, Libby, Montana is so contaminated that residents who had no connection to the mine also are getting sick and dying.
Black invited Molloy to come see the “unbelievable suffering because of Grace’s criminal actions.”
“For decades, that company showered Libby with a slow poison, delivered with a full knowledge that the asbestos would sicken or kill a large percentage of our population. If that’s not a crime, and these people aren’t victims, I don’t know what is.”
During a pretrial hearing in January 2009, Judge Molloy said that in cases of bank robbery, drug dealing, child pornography and the like, “there is generally a person or persons who are identifiable as victims.”
A “crime victim means a person directly and proximately harmed as a result of the commission of a federal offense,” the judge added.
Which is what the trial is about — whether Grace violated federal criminal laws.
Yet Judge Malloy thinks there are no crime victims identifiable in this case.
W.R. Grace asked Judge Malloy to exclude Libby witnesses.
Molloy’s decision appears to be based on his belief that the testimony of the victim-witnesses will be materially altered if they are allowed to attend the trial and listen to other witnesses.
That mean the rights of Libby residents who have lost loved ones or who themselves have been sickened or otherwise harmed by Grace’s actions, and are witnesses for the government, may not attend the trial, says Paul Cassell, a former federal judge and national authority in victims’ rights.
He and the federal government have asked Molloy to reverse his decision.
Prosecutors say they will be using 34 witnesses from Libby.
It takes courage for any prosecutor to officially challenge a ruling by a judge before whom they must appear, but the government has done this several times over Molloy’s decisions leading up to the Grace trial. In almost all the appeals, the appellate court overturned Molloy’s rulings.
Sounds fair and balanced.
The prosecution asked Molloy to accord the victims, especially those testifying in the trial, the rights outlined in the 2004 Crime Victims’ Rights Act.
A large number of victims, including some of the government’s trial witnesses, believe they have been harmed as a direct result of deliberate acts by Grace.
Congress passed the Crime Victims’ Rights Act, in large part, because victims and survivors of the Oklahoma City bombing case were kicked out of the courtroom during the 1997 trial.
Cassell, a senior law professor at the University of Utah, says if Molloy’s ruling is not overturned, basically no victims in this country, in the federal system, are going to get to watch the court proceedings, to see whether justice is done.
Late Friday, Molloy issued an order denying the motions of both the government and Cassell and repeated that he recognizes “no identifiable victims” of the federal offenses alleged in the indictments against Grace.
As soon as he can get an appeal written, Cassell says he will ask the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to overturn Molloy’s ruling. The Victims’ Rights Act requires a decision within 72 hours, he says.
A grand jury thought the facts were damning enough to issue indictments against Grace and seven of its present and former executives, yet there are no identifiable victims?
Read the article and background on Libby, Montana at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.
Topics: Claims, Exposure, Facts, Law, Lawsuits |
