Accident or Corporate Manslaughter?

[Robert Weissman <rob@essential.org>]

Let's say you've had one too many drinks. 

You get into your car and drive away. 

You cross the center line and hit an oncoming car. Someone in the oncoming
car dies in the crash. 

You didn't intend to kill that person. You are horrified that your
recklessness has resulted in the death of another human being. 

No matter. You will be charged with involuntary manslaughter and be sent
off to prison. 

Like the drunk behind the wheel, corporations generally don't intend to
kill people. Yet they kill people with their reckless actions. And while
in the vast majority of cases, individuals will be prosecuted for
involuntary manslaughter in drunk driving death cases, in the vast
majority of cases, corporations are not prosecuted for involuntary
manslaughter when people die as a result of their recklessness. 

Occasionally, organizations are charged with manslaughter. Earlier this
month, a Massachusetts grand jury charged a Massachusetts Institute of
Technology (MIT) fraternity with hazing and manslaughter in connection
with the alcohol-related death of a student, Scott Krueger. 

The Boston chapter of the Phi Gamma Delta fraternity was charged in
connection with the death of Scott Krueger, an 18- year-old MIT freshman
who was found unconscious on the night of September 27, 1998 in his
bedroom at the MIT frat house in Boston. 

Involuntary manslaughter statutes do not require intent to kill. In
California, for example, involuntary manslaughter contemplates acts which
involve "a high risk of death or bodily harm," and which are committed
"without due caution or circumspection." That encompasses the vast
majority of corporate killings. 

Last week, a lawyer representing Earth First protesters called on the
District Attorney in Humboldt County, in northern California, to
investigate Pacific Lumber and one of its loggers for manslaughter in
connection with the death earlier this month of David Chain, a 24-year old
activist. 

Chain was with a group of protesters in a forest area near Fortuna,
California, trying to persuade loggers not to cut down the giant 200-year
old trees. He died when a giant tree was cut down and crushed him. 

Earth First issued a statement saying, "The loggers were aware that
activists were in the woods and deliberately felled trees in their
direction." 

The group said that "loggers were felling trees perpendicular to the hill
rather than downhill in an apparent attempt to target activists." 

Pacific Lumber said the death of Chain was accidental. Pacific Lumber
President John Campbell said the logging crew did not see anybody in the
area and had no idea Chain was standing nearby. 

"They felled a tree and apparently heard some yelling, and then the feller
was cutting the tree into segments when the body was found under a limb,"
Campbell said. 

But Richard Jay Moller, a Redway, California lawyer affiliated with Earth
First, called Pacific Lumber's contention that the loggers did not see
anybody in the area an "outrageous lie." 

Earth First protesters had videotaped the protest before Chain was killed.
The videotape shows the logger who later cut down the tree that killed
Chain. The logger, identified only as "A.E.," is heard yelling obscenities
at the group of activists. 

"Get the f--- out of here," A.E. threatens. "Get outta here, otherwise
I'll f---, I'll make sure I got a tree comin' this way." 

A.E. is then heard telling the activists, "I wish I had my f- ---- pistol.
I guess I'm gonna just start packin' that motherf--- -- in here. 'Cause I
can only be nice so f----- long. Go get my saw, I'm gonna start fallin'
into this f----- draw." 

Moller said an independent investigation into the incident is needed
because the investigative detective assigned to the case has apparently
already made up his mind that the case was an "accident." 

Moller called for a manslaughter prosecution against the logger, A.E., and
a manslaughter investigation into the company. 

Moller said that none of the witnesses believed that A.E. intended to kill
Chain. "But virtually all of the witnesses believed, based on A.E.'s words
and actions that day, that he was trying to scare them and was
intentionally dropping trees in their direction," Moller said. "If the
eyewitnesses are believed, that conduct is sufficient to constitute
manslaughter." 

As for Pacific Lumber, Moller said that "it is critical that an
independent investigator be assigned who can investigate what PL's
[Pacific Lumber's] management told its employees and loggers to do when
confronted by protesters in the woods." 

Moller says that California law is clear that "a corporation and high
level employees can be charged and convicted of negligent homicide and
involuntary manslaughter." 

Most corporate criminologists agree that corporate crime and violence
inflicts far more damage on society than all street crime combined. That
includes killings and deaths. The time has come for the families and
friends of victims to organize and demand justice and a criminal
prosecution against corporations and their executives who engage in
manslaughter.

Russell Mokhiber is editor of the Washington, D.C.-based Corporate Crime
Reporter. Robert Weissman is editor of the Washington, D.C.-based
Multinational Monitor.

(c) Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman

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