NationStates Jolt Archive

One year ago, in Turin, 7 workers of the local Thyssen-Krupp steel mill were burned to death as a consequence of a grave incident on their workplace.
The interesting thing is that the state prosecutor of Turin (dr.Guariniello), following a year-long investigation, has charged the local CEO of Thyssen-Krupp with multiple murder instead of multiple manslaughter (the exact charge in italian is "omicidio volontario multiplo con dolo eventuale": I think it can be translated as "multiple intended murder as consequence of taking a deliberated risk").
Dr.Guariniello maintains that, by deliberately neglecting to improve the steel mill's safety systems to the legal standards, the CEO practically sent the workers to their deaths, just to save money.
This is the first time that in Italy a CEO is charged with murder (instead of manslaughter) for having caused the death of employees as consequence of neglecting safety standards.

What do you think about it?

Murder may well be a bit harsh. The CEOs didn't actually plan the deaths of the workers concerned, or set out to kill anyone. It does seem to me that manslaughter is probably more acceptable than banging them away for murder.

banging them away for murder.

Ew.

Ew.
As in going to prison.

But that might still happen in there.

I thought murder required deliberate intention of death.

I thought murder required deliberate intention of death.

if italy is anything like the US, murder requires any one of the following:

1) intention to cause death
2) intention to cause grievous bodily injury that results in death
3) an action that demonstrates a depraved and criminally extremely disregard for human life that results in death

3) an action that demonstrates a depraved and criminally extremely disregard for human life that results in death

And from what I gather, an arguement could be made for this one to apply.

if italy is anything like the US, murder requires any one of the following:

1) intention to cause death
2) intention to cause grievous bodily injury that results in death
3) an action that demonstrates a depraved and criminally extremely disregard for human life that results in death
This could possibly be filed under the third, then. But it does seem somewhat over the top.

Perhaps they were being made an example of?

I think they are being made an example of. Its showing the CEOs of companies that are cutting corners that it is not acceptable, and they will be punished if caught. Its a way to ensure that all businesses start meeting govt. standards.

I think they are being made an example of. Its showing the CEOs of companies that are cutting corners that it is not acceptable, and they will be punished if caught. Its a way to ensure that all businesses start meeting govt. standards.

Indeed, they are making examples of them. Sucks for the CEO's, but could be effective.

I think they are being made an example of. Its showing the CEOs of companies that are cutting corners that it is not acceptable, and they will be punished if caught. Its a way to ensure that all businesses start meeting govt. standards.

The thing I'd be concerned about, though, is that it's not always the CEO's who are behind cost-cutting measures that result in safety problems. Oftentimes it's the middleman, whose been told that costs are too high who makes the decision to cut in safety--because its the area that's least reviewable to accountants and higher management.

The thing I'd be concerned about, though, is that it's not always the CEO's who are behind cost-cutting measures that result in safety problems. Oftentimes it's the middleman, whose been told that costs are too high who makes the decision to cut in safety--because its the area that's least reviewable to accountants and higher management.

First rule of leadership. Everything is your fault.

First rule of leadership. Everything is your fault.

Unless youre the Bush Administration and his lackies. Then its always someone else's. Usually Clinton's.

The thing I'd be concerned about, though, is that it's not always the CEO's who are behind cost-cutting measures that result in safety problems. Oftentimes it's the middleman, whose been told that costs are too high who makes the decision to cut in safety--because its the area that's least reviewable to accountants and higher management.

You have a good point, but according to the article the deaths were investigated for a long time. They must have evidence that actually directly connects the CEO to the decisions leading up to it.

First rule of leadership. Everything is your fault.

There's responsibility to be had, but murder charges hardly seem appropriate, because if this is like most cases when massive safety failures occurred, they aren't the ones who made the decision that resulted in the failure. Obviously pecuniary damages are in order, but I don't think the ties are anywhere near strong enough for the government to justify murder charges. Now, I don't know the specifics in this case, but looking at modern regulatory history, this is probably the case.

You have a good point, but according to the article the deaths were investigated for a long time. They must have evidence that actually directly connects the CEO to the decisions leading up to it.

Having read some of the things I've read about the function of Italian prosecutors--especially in high profile cases--I'd not be so certain.

Reading about the f-up that was the prosecution when dealing with the fire in the Fenice Opera House in Venice, for instance. The prosecutor charged practically half of Venice with arson, (with roughly logic used in the charges) and in the end, only two sentences were handed down.

verdict Italy's justice system is crazy.

Thyssen Six To Face Trial For Murder (http://www.corriere.it/english/08_novembre_18/thyssen_murder_2285ac3e-b565-11dd-9b9d-00144f02aabc.shtml)

Decision by preliminary hearing magistrate on fire that cost seven workers’ lives. Guariniello calls ruling “historic”

TURIN – Murder. For the first time in Italy’s legal history, someone will have to answer murder charges for an accident at work. The ruling came from magistrate Francesco Gianfrotta, who committed for trial the six men facing charges over the Thyssen Krupp fire last December in which seven workers lost their lives. The preliminary hearing magistrate found in favour of public prosecutors Raffaele Guariniello, Laura Longo and Francesca Traverso, sending Thyssen CEO Harald Espenhahn for trial on a charge of murder aggravated by recklessness, brought for the first time in such a case. The other five Thyssen Krupp executives and employees, Gerald Prigneitz, Marco Pucci, Giuseppe Salerno, Daniele Moroni, Cosimo Cafueri, will be tried for murder aggravated by negligence. All are charged with culpable failure to implement safety measures. Also granted was the request to make Thyssen Krupp stand trial as a corporate body “because the offence was committed in the interest, and to the benefit, of the company”, as public prosecutor Guariniello explained. The trial, the first in the Assise Court in this area, is scheduled to begin on 15 January.

NEVER BEFORE – For Mr Guariniello, the ruling is historic. The public prosecutor was the first to emerge from the courtroom after the preliminary hearing magistrate had read out the rulings. A visibly satisfied Mr Guariniello emphasised that it was the first time that “both individuals and the company have committed for trial on the charges brought by us”. Satisfaction was also expressed by relatives of the victims who were present in court and who left with arms raised in triumph. Someone shouted “Thank you Guariniello” and others commented: “This is just the start. Now they’ve got to go to prison”.

CHANGE THE CHARGE – Naturally enough, defence lawyers took a different stance. For Turin lawyer, Ezio Audisio, counsel for the Thyssen Krupp CEO Harald Espenhahn, it is a ruling “that obviously we were not hoping for but which we respect, in the firm conviction that this decision will be reassessed and recontextualised in a framework more appropriate to this and other similar cases”. Mr Audisio continued: “Since this is a committal for trial, the judge’s ruling does not enter into the merits of liability but merely says that a trial should be held. We have never objected to a trial. We only asked that it should be made on other negligence-related charges. For the time being, the magistrate disagrees with that view but we remain confident that a finding will be made in our favour when the merits of the case are discussed at the trial”.

GROUNDS – The preliminary hearing magistrate’s statement of grounds says that “the CEO of Thyssen Krupp contemplated the concrete possibility of fatal or non-fatal accidents on the Apl5 line” of the Turin factory and “accepted the risk”. According to the magistrate, although Mr Espenhahn was aware of the problems, “he took the decision first to postpone fire safety investments at the Turin factory from 2006/2007 to 2007/2008, even though he had already scheduled the facility’s closure”, and then “the decision to postpone investment for the adaptation of line 5 [recommended by the insurers, the fire service and Thyssen’s own WGS unit – Ed.] to a date subsequent to his transfer from Turin to Terni”.

ThyssenKrupp execs in Italy indicted over deaths (http://www.reuters.com/article/rbssIndustryMaterialsUtilitiesNews/idUSLH7577020081117)

TURIN, Italy, Nov 17 (Reuters) - Six executives at German steelmaker ThyssenKrupp's Italian unit were indicted on Monday on charges ranging from murder to manslaughter over a steel plant fire last December that killed seven people, a public prosecutor said.

The tragedy at the plant in the northern city of Turin, one of the deadliest work accidents in Italy in recent years, shocked the country and prompted the government to tighten job safety legislation.

In what public prosecutor Raffaele Guariniello said was a first for Italy, the chief executive of ThyssenKrupp Acciai Speciali Terni S.p.A. was charged with murder for deaths at the workplace.

CEO Harald Espenhahn, who prosecutors believe could face at least 21 years in prison if convicted, denies any wrongdoing, his attorney Ezio Audisio said.

Another five executives were charged with manslaughter and could face up to 15 years in jail.

The Italian unit of ThyssenKrupp, Germany's biggest steelmaker, also faced possible fines and restrictions on its activities if found guilty, Guariniello told Reuters.

The trial is set to begin on Jan. 15.

Fellow workers who tried to save the seven men say the fire extinguishers were empty and that safety standards in general at the Turin factory, which was being dismantled to be relocated in central Italy, were inadequate.

*snip*

verdict Italy's justice system is crazy.

overruled. :p

If he's only the local CEO, it was his superiors' job to make sure that he was carrying out his responsibilities properly. The corporation should be liable unless he committed the act outside of his authority and outside of the employment of the company.

Either that, or make it similar to the CFO position where they assume liability for the integrity of financial statements submitted for their approval.

And from what I gather, an arguement could be made for this one to apply.

Yes, I think that it translates quite well the charge.

if italy is anything like the US, murder requires any one of the following:

1) intention to cause death
2) intention to cause grievous bodily injury that results in death
3) an action that demonstrates a depraved and criminally extremely disregard for human life that results in deathIt's different. I personally think it's a stretch, but they can argue murder for it being an insidious means of death and for abject motives (in this case: profit).

If he's only the local CEO, it was his superiors' job to make sure that he was carrying out his responsibilities properly. The corporation should be liable unless he committed the act outside of his authority and outside of the employment of the company.

Either that, or make it similar to the CFO position where they assume liability for the integrity of financial statements submitted for their approval.

The corporation will be liable for civil penalties, like being sued by the victims' families.

The CEO is liable for criminal penalties because his was the highest level that had day-to-day interaction with the plant. He either did or should have known about the situation - wheras his superiors, not interacting with the factory, might well not have known nor had a good reason for knowing.

Surely the prosecution in this case is opening themselves to getting no conviction? I assume that Italian law is similar to elsewhere in that murder is a lot more difficult to prove than manslaughter.
Fair enough wanting to send a message that neglecting safety is not on, but if all that happens is the CEO is acquitted, what then will be achieved?

Surely the prosecution in this case is opening themselves to getting no conviction? I assume that Italian law is similar to elsewhere in that murder is a lot more difficult to prove than manslaughter.
Fair enough wanting to send a message that neglecting safety is not on, but if all that happens is the CEO is acquitted, what then will be achieved?

I agree that this is overreach by the prosecution, unless "murder" is defined more broadly in Italy than it is in America. "Depraved heart murder" tends to be more like driving a car through a crowd of people than simple negligence.

This is outright ridiculous. Murder only exists when there are clear and intentional actions done to kill someone. I'm not sure that "depraved and criminal disregard for life" is in US laws at all, but if it is, AIUI it generally applies to things like demolishing a still inhabited building, i.e. where the action was done not with the intent of killing, but with it as a clear side effect.

Merely not improving safety systems doesn't remotely qualify as anything that at all.

I hope and expect it to fail.

Surely the prosecution in this case is opening themselves to getting no conviction? I assume that Italian law is similar to elsewhere in that murder is a lot more difficult to prove than manslaughter.
Fair enough wanting to send a message that neglecting safety is not on, but if all that happens is the CEO is acquitted, what then will be achieved?

Well, actually, the trial in Italy is somewhat different, and the judge can change the charge during the trial (in favor rei, usually): so the charge might become multiple manslaughter during the trial.

Btw: "omicidio volontario con dolo eventuale" has already been used to charge and sentence to prison a guy who killed two people while driving under the influence of alcohol and drugs. Although there was no specific intent of killing someone, the italian law considers those deaths as the logical consequence of neglecting safety, and that's murder.

Murder only exists when there are clear and intentional actions done to kill someone.

Well, not in italian law, according to the latest interpretations. The one you define is "omicidio volontario" or "omicidio premeditato" here. "Omicidio volontario con dolo eventuale" is different and somewhat lesser than the first two cases, but anyway more heinous than "omicidio colposo" (manslaughter).

This is outright ridiculous. Murder only exists when there are clear and intentional actions done to kill someone.

No, what distinguishes murder from homicide is "malice aforethought," which isn't necessarily intent. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second-degree_murder#Legal_analysis_of_murder)
The following states of mind are recognized as constituting the various forms of "malice aforethought":

(i) Intent to kill; (ii) Intent to inflict serious bodily harm short of death; (iii) Reckless indifference to an unjustifiably high risk to human life (sometimes described as an "abandoned and malignant heart"); or (iv) Intent to commit a dangerous felony (the "felony-murder" doctrine).
Under state of mind (iii), an "abandoned and malignant heart," the killing must result from defendant's conduct involving a reckless indifference to human life and a conscious disregard of an unreasonable risk of death or serious bodily injury
The charge of murder isn't wholly specious. It's just a matter of the degree of neglect by the CEO, which is hard to judge just from reading the news article. But it's probably an overreach.

It's definitely an overreach regardless of the degree of neglect. People who have done much more direct and negligent actions were charged with homicide. I in no way approve of the "CEO's actions", but the law should be used as the law, not as a way to punish people you don't like.

As the very linked article says,
[...]An example of this is a 2007 law in California where an individual could be convicted of third-degree murder if he or she kills another person while operating a motor vehicle while being under the influence of alcohol, drugs, or controlled substances.
I.e. this involves actual actions that have clearly caused death.
Not following new safety regulations in no way constitutes that. No degree of neglect would constitute murder. The workers have voluntarily signed up for a high-risk job, they have made some mistakes, someone has died. The fact that the company could put in precautions to prevent these deaths doesn't make them murderers.


The reason I put "CEO's actions" in quotes is that 99% of the time it's not the CEO, but some subordinate who violated the rules, and the CEO merely wasn't aware of that, but gets charged as he's got the highest rank.

This is outright ridiculous. Murder only exists when there are clear and intentional actions done to kill someone. I'm not sure that "depraved and criminal disregard for life" is in US laws at all, but if it is, AIUI it generally applies to things like demolishing a still inhabited building, i.e. where the action was done not with the intent of killing, but with it as a clear side effect.

Merely not improving safety systems doesn't remotely qualify as anything that at all.

I hope and expect it to fail.

Given that you don't know Italian law, don't really understand the law regarding homicide in general, and don't really know the facts involved here, perhaps this is NOT "outright ridiculous."

As for U.S. Law, from Black's Law Dictionary's definition of "murder":

Extremely negligent conduct, which creates what a reasonable man would realize to be not only an unjustifiable but also very high degree of risk of death or serious bodily injury to another or to others--though unaccompanied by any intent to kill or do serious bodily injury--and which actually causes the death of another, may constitute murder.

Now, this case may prove something of a stretch--depending on the facts--regarding both causation and the degree of negligence or recklessness, but it is far from absurd on its face.

It's definitely an overreach regardless of the degree of neglect. People who have done much more direct and negligent actions were charged with homicide. I in no way approve of the "CEO's actions", but the law should be used as the law, not as a way to punish people you don't like.

If someone's unlawful actions unintentionally cause another's death, the only basis for distinguishing between manslaughter and murder is the degree of recklessness. That operating a vehicle under the influence can be murder isn't based on those actions being "actual." It's because a reasonable person would realize those actions constituted an unjustifiable risk to the lives of others. If willfully ignoring legally mandated safety protocol showed similar disregard for the possibility of death, then a murder charge is just as applicable (Although I have no idea if Italian "omicidio" is comparable to U.S. "murder.").

If someone's unlawful actions unintentionally cause another's death, the only basis for distinguishing between manslaughter and murder is the degree of recklessness. That operating a vehicle under the influence can be murder
Can be, in some states. I.e. it's already a very questionable case, and so a stretch.

But there, at least, a person operates a vehicle and directly causes death to third parties, a vehicle is not so different from a knife or a gun. Even if the definition can be overstretched further, that doesn't make it less ridiculous.


(Although I have no idea if Italian "omicidio" is comparable to U.S. "murder.").
Seeing as "omicidio" should mean "homicide", I presume it's viewed as less of a separate crime than murder. Or, on the contrary, that the crime charged may be separate from what is in US a first-degree murder altogether.

Surely the prosecution in this case is opening themselves to getting no conviction? I assume that Italian law is similar to elsewhere in that murder is a lot more difficult to prove than manslaughter.
Fair enough wanting to send a message that neglecting safety is not on, but if all that happens is the CEO is acquitted, what then will be achieved?I don't know Italian law, but there's nothing in German law that bars the judge from issuing a verdict on manslaughter in a murder case.

EDIT: And it appears this is similar in Italy afterall.

if an executive or manigorial decision in a private industry resaults in death or injury of anyone, employess OR the general public, i see absolutely no moral reason the maker of that decision should be any less criminally liable then if they were to have run over them with their car, or any other form of manslaughter, and if it can be shown to be premeditated and deliberate, not just manslaughter but multiple murder.

if an executive or manigorial decision in a private industry resaults in death or injury of anyone, employess OR the general public, i see absolutely no moral reason the maker of that decision should be any less criminally liable then if they were to have run over them with their car, or any other form of manslaughter, and if it can be shown to be premeditated and deliberate, not just manslaughter but multiple murder.
What about this, then?


The infamous Ford Pinto memo.
For those who don't know the story, Ford Pinto had its tank mounted in a crappy position, where it would be very easily ruptured, by metal objects (creating a spark) in case of a rear-end collision. This was known to Ford, and the engineers have suggested a $11 modification to the design that would eliminate the problem. However, the purpose of the design was minimal cost, not safety. Their suggestion was reviewed in this document (http://www.calbaptist.edu/dskubik/pinto.htm), that was discovered and leaked later:

Fatalities Associated with Crash-Induced Fuel Leakage and Fires

Expected Costs of producing the Pinto with fuel tank modifications:

* Expected unit sales: 11 million vehicles
(includes utility vehicles built on same chassis)
* Modification costs per unit: $11.00
* Total Cost: $121 million
[= 11,000,000 vehicles x $11.00 per unit]

Expected Costs of producing the Pinto without fuel tank modifications:

* Expected accident results (assuming 2100 accidents):
180 burn deaths
180 serious burn injuries
2100 burned out vehicles
* Unit costs of accident results (assuming out of court settlements):
$200,000 per burn death
$67,000 per serious injury
$700 per burned out vehicle
* Total Costs: $49.53 million
[= (180 deaths x $200k) + (180 injuries x $67k) + (2100 vehicles x $700 per vehicle)]



Of course, since it was cheaper, the ultimate decision was to produce the Pinto without modifications.

The executives were acquitted on all criminal charges.

Seeing as "omicidio" should mean "homicide", I presume it's viewed as less of a separate crime than murder. Or, on the contrary, that the crime charged may be separate from what is in US a first-degree murder altogether.

In Italy, "omicidio" is a catch-all term for all crimes that involve the death of a man: ranging from a manslaughter as result of an accident, to a sniper stalking his victim for a hour and then shooting at him. One should always look at the following adjective to understand exactly what time of crime is alleged ("omicidio colposo", "omicidio volontario", "omicidio premeditato").

What about this, then?


The infamous Ford Pinto memo.
For those who don't know the story, Ford Pinto had its tank mounted in a crappy position, where it would be very easily ruptured, by metal objects (creating a spark) in case of a rear-end collision. This was known to Ford, and the engineers have suggested a $11 modification to the design that would eliminate the problem. However, the purpose of the design was minimal cost, not safety. Their suggestion was reviewed in this document (http://www.calbaptist.edu/dskubik/pinto.htm), that was discovered and leaked later:

Fatalities Associated with Crash-Induced Fuel Leakage and Fires

Expected Costs of producing the Pinto with fuel tank modifications:

* Expected unit sales: 11 million vehicles
(includes utility vehicles built on same chassis)
* Modification costs per unit: $11.00
* Total Cost: $121 million
[= 11,000,000 vehicles x $11.00 per unit]

Expected Costs of producing the Pinto without fuel tank modifications:

* Expected accident results (assuming 2100 accidents):
180 burn deaths
180 serious burn injuries
2100 burned out vehicles
* Unit costs of accident results (assuming out of court settlements):
$200,000 per burn death
$67,000 per serious injury
$700 per burned out vehicle
* Total Costs: $49.53 million
[= (180 deaths x $200k) + (180 injuries x $67k) + (2100 vehicles x $700 per vehicle)]



Of course, since it was cheaper, the ultimate decision was to produce the Pinto without modifications.

The executives were acquitted on all criminal charges.

Um. Contrary to your assumption, the prosecution of Ford executives for reckless homicide illustrates that corporate executives can be prosecuted for homicide based on corporate wrongdoing. It just happens to be the case that in that particular prosecution the evidence was not sufficient for a conviction. Multiple possible explanations for this exist, but "nuh uh, you can't charge CEOs with murder" isn't one of them.

Um. Contrary to your assumption, the prosecution of Ford executives for reckless homicide illustrates that corporate executives can be prosecuted for homicide based on corporate wrongdoing.
They weren't prosecuted on signing a very specific decision to neglect safety and sacrifice hundreds of people to make a car cheaper by eleven bucks. Charges can be filed on any nonsense. What matters if there is a conviction. And there wasn't. Not any. Caveat emptor.


Multiple possible explanations for this exist, but "nuh uh, you can't charge CEOs with murder" isn't one of them.
Nope, it's exactly that.

They weren't prosecuted on signing a very specific decision to neglect safety and sacrifice hundreds of people to make a car cheaper by eleven bucks. Charges can be filed on any nonsense. What matters if there is a conviction. And there wasn't. Not any. Caveat emptor.

Nonsense charges don't survive the pretrial stages. Here, there was an indictment by a grand jury, the case survived preliminary motions to dismiss, a full jury trial was held, the jury deliberated for four days, and eventually the executives were found not guilty.

Nope, it's exactly that.

Curious that others draw exactly the opposite conclusion from the Ford Pinto case -- it was a seminal illustration of how corporate executives could be criminally prosecuted for corporate wrongdoing.

This article is illustrative of corporate conduct being prosecuted as crime, including murder:

Redefining Corporate Crime
by Willilam Maakestad
0n August 10, 1978, three teenage girls driving in a Ford Pinto were hit from behind on Highway 33 in northern Indiana. Within moments their car burst into flames and Lyn Ulrich, 16 and her cousin Donna Ulrich, 18, were burned to death. Eight hours later, Lyn's 18-year-old sister, Judy, who had third degree burns over 95 percent of her body, also died.

When an Indiana grand jury looked into the accident a month later, they voted unanimously to indict not the driver of the van that had rear-ended the three girls, but Ford Motor Company - then the country's third largest industrial corporation - on three counts of reckless homicide. The automaker was accused of recklessly designing, manufacturing and marketing the Pinto's unsafe fuel tank system.

Although Ford was ultimately acquitted, the criminal prosecution of Ford Motor Company reestablished an important precedent: In certain cases involving huyman health and safety, corporations and their executives could be required to submit not only to the scrutiny and sanctions of traditional federal agencies, but to state criminal courts as well.

Although the Ford case and its legacy have sparked intense debate over the past decade, the idea of using criminal sanctions to deter corporate misbehavior is hardly new. Nearly a century ago in the Shereman Antitrust Act, Congress used the threat of criminal penalties to check the economic behavior of the emerging modern business corporation.

Today, as the public's awareness that the costs of corporate crime go far beyond economic considerations has increased, so have the number of cases where corpoations are facing criminal prosecution. In a national survey of 60,000 citizens who rated the seriousness of over 200 acts, the Justic Department found that Americans "view purposeful dumping of hazardous waste as a worse act than some homicides." And one recent survey showed that nearly 70 percent of the public advocates prison terms for executives responsible for corporate offenses that have actual or potential violent consequences.

The legal consequences of this change of consciousness are profound: Corporations and their executives that endanger the lives of employees - through unsafe workplaces, consumers - through dangerously defective products, or even communities - through illegally dumped toxic wastes, will increasingly face serious criminal charges - including homicide - in the state courts.

The recent increase in the use of criminal sanctions to protect public health and safety can be traced to a landmark 1975 case entitled U.S. v. Park, where the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the conviction of the chief executive officer of a large retail grocery store chain that had maintained rodent infested warehouses despite two warnings from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Even though the defendant had apparently instructed a subordinate to clear up the problem after each warning, the Supreme Court held that in such important matters of public health and safety, strict criminal liability could be justified. Although Park was a federal case, it sent a strong signal to business executives and prosecutors at all levels by lending the U.S. Supreme Court's approval to the use of criminal sanctions in corporate settings. "Then, and only then," in the words of Peter Jones, former chief counsel and member of the board of directors of Levi Strauss, "will busy executives feel enough pressure to devote the time, effort and resources necessary to prevent activities that seriously threaten public health."

Four years after the Supreme Court upheld the Park case, Ford was taken to court in the landmark Ford Pinto trial in Indiana. In the summer of 1985, the stakes were raised even higher when a Cook County, Illinois judge found three executives of Film Recovery Systems, a corporation that used cyanide to extract silver from used film, guilty of murder in the cyanide poisoning of a worker. The judge concluded that the employees were willfully deceived about the hazards of working with cyanide, supplied with virtually none of the safety equipment required by law and provided with a woefully inadequate ventilation system for the 140 vats of cyanide solution crowded into the warehouse. (Under the Reagan administration's new agency guidelines, OSHA had been barred from inspecting the plant prior to the tragedy.)

Tort v. Crime

Tort law and criminal law are often used to address the same or similar wrongdoings. For example, even though owning and operating a motor vehicle is a socially beneficial and encouraged activity regulated by administrative laws and the threat of civil suits, criminal laws are occasionally employed to deal with especially reckless and life-threatening behavior - behavior for which resort to a civil suit or regulatory fine is deemed insufficient. Cases like park, Ford Motor Co. and Film Recovery Systems appear to signify that an analogous development has taken place with regard to owning and operating a business.

Society now appears to be willing to support not only costly economic, but also morally symbolic criminal sanctions to deter businesses from endangering human life by transgressing acceptable boundaries of morality and risk.

"Some corporate behavior is seen now as just too objectionable to allow it to be purchased under a tax or civil penalty system," said University of Southern California law professor Christopher Stone, one of the leading corporate law experts in the country.

There are more cases of corporate homicide - not to mention other lesser offenses - currently pending in state courts than the cumulative number of those previously tried during our nation's history. The vast majority of homicide indictments that have been brought against corporate entities and/or individual executives involve workplace deaths. While the Film Recovery Systems case is not solely responsible for the rapid growth of occupationally related homicide prosecutions, it has received widespread publicity and clearly has shaped the legal strategy in many recent cases. The legal and business communities around the country are watching other important cases:


In 1986, two Austin, Texas companies - Peabody Southwest Inc. and Sabine Consolidated Inc. - and their officers were charged with criminally negligent homicide in connection with the deaths of three workers who were buried alive in two separate construction-trench cave-ins. The prosecutors alleged reckless disregard for on-the-job safety standards on the part of contractor-owners. While charges against one executive were dismissed, another recently pleaded guilty.


In 1985, the California Supreme Court refused to overturn the in voluntary manslaughter indictments of movie director John Landis and four other defendants. The charges stemmed from the 1982 deaths of actor Vic Morrow and two children during the filming of "Twilight Zone: The Movie." Prosecutors claim that extreme negligence during filming of a late-night scene led to a disastrous helicopter accident. If convicted the defendants could face two to six years in jail.


After the death of a worker who had suffocated while digging an elevator shaft, Maggio Drilling Inc. and its president were charged in 1984 with involuntary felonymanslaughter in Los Angeles. The district attorney alleged that the company failed to shore up the trench, provide a safety harness, and monitor the air in the underground shaft. The corporate president recently pleaded no contest to the manslaughter charge.


In 1984, General Dynamics Corporation was charged with involuntary manslaughter and criminal violations of state occupational standards in the death of a worker exposed to fluorocarbon solvent vapors at its military tank plant in Center Line, Michigan. A state court dismissed the charges, citing the worker's "hypersensitivity" to the solvent, but the Michigan Attorney General's office is appealing the decision.


Seven construction workers were killed in a 1981 accident at a power plant project near Fresno, California. After being presented with evidence regarding lax safety standards on the site, a grand jury indicted the Granite Construction Company for manslaughter. The firm sought to dismiss the indictment on the grounds that a corporation could not be charged with homicide, but a court of appeals rejected this claim and upheld the indictment.


In New York, Warner Lambert Company and several of its officials were indicted for second-degree manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide after a 1976 explosion in the company's gum-making plant killed six workers. The prosecution alleged that the blast could be traced to the failure of officials to install an adequate exhaust system. Although it did not disallow the possibility of such a prosecution under different circumstances, an appellate court dismissed the indictment, stating that the actual cause of the explosion had been unforeseeable.


Remarkably in the so-called conservative, Reaganomic 1980s, state's attorneys are fighting significant obstacles to bring the criminal law to bear against corporations under circumstances that just a few years ago would have resulted in only a regulatory action, worker's compensation claims, or a private civil suit.

"Both the public and prosecutors are beginning to realize that some accidents on the job can be equally outrageous as someone who hits a guy over the head and takes his wallet," says Ann Singleton, a Maryland prosecutor who responded to a fatal highway accident by filing involuntary manslaughter charges against a truck leasing firm owner that allegedly refused to maintain his fleet's brakes.

Virtually every survey on corporate and white collar crime indicates heightened public concern over not only the incidence, but the seriousness of corporate crime. The public's perceptions of what constitutes "acceptable risk" in daily life is also changing, especially as people become more aware of such things as the short- and long-term dangers of toxic chemicals in workplaces and communities.

Finally, some observers, like Russell Mokhiber, editor of the Corporate Crime Reporter, believe that state prosecutions of corporations for health and safety violations are responses to a decrease in watchfulness by the traditional federal regulatory agencies.

"It's a reaction to diminished federal civil regulation," said Mokhiber, "local district attorneys are just getting fed up and starting to prosecute."

Beginning in 1981, as one agency spokesperson noted, OSHA stressed "cooperation toward manufacturers rather than an adversarial role." In the last four years, the number of OSHA inspectors decreased by 17 percent; both the number of complaints investigated and the amount of fines for violating safety standards declined by 44 percent. In 1985, the U.S. Labor Department reported alarming statistics: work-related deaths had jumped 17 percent in 1984, while occupational injuries and illnesses had increased 11 percent.

Although it is risky to claim a direct link between weakened regulatory controls and increased death and injury in the workplace, prosecutors have not been reluctant to make this connection and to cite it as justification for criminally sanctioning corporate offenders.

"The more I looked into this, the madder I got," said Jay Magnuson, the prosecutor in the Film Recovery Systems case. "I felt that if OSHA had taken a look at that plant, Stephan Golab might still be alive. We stepped in because nobody else would do it."

There is no single source of incentives or disincentives - whether provided by the marketplace, government regulations, civil suits, or criminal prosecutions - that can minimize the economic, social, and physical costs of businesses that violate the law. It takes a strong combination of these countervailing forces to both redress and deter such misbehavior. Even Japan, this country's most formidable trade competitor, has sanctioned the use of criminal penalties against its wayward corporations.

Criminal prosecutions of corporations are neither a preferred approach to matters that can be addressed adequately by private civil suits, nor a substitute for the rigorous enforcement of regulatory provisions under OSHA or the EPA. Such criminal prosecutions have simply redefined business misbehavior that threatens human health and safety: What was once labeled "just bad business" may now be considered a criminal act.

Unfortunately, the article is a bit dated and I'll try to find information on how the bullet-pointed cases turned out. Still cases like U.S. v. Park and Film Recovery Systems argue that your "you can't prosecute CEOs stance" is pure nonsense.

EDIT: You may also want to check these out: Details of Convictions of Directors for the offence of manslaughter (U.K.) (http://www.corporateaccountability.org/directors/convictions/manslaughter/main.htm); Court Says Job Hazards May Be a Crime (http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C0CE5DD1030F934A25753C1A966958260)

One year ago, in Turin, 7 workers of the local Thyssen-Krupp steel mill were burned to death as a consequence of a grave incident on their workplace.
The interesting thing is that the state prosecutor of Turin (dr.Guariniello), following a year-long investigation, has charged the local CEO of Thyssen-Krupp with multiple murder instead of multiple manslaughter (the exact charge in italian is "omicidio volontario multiplo con dolo eventuale": I think it can be translated as "multiple intended murder as consequence of taking a deliberated risk").
Dr.Guariniello maintains that, by deliberately neglecting to improve the steel mill's safety systems to the legal standards, the CEO practically sent the workers to their deaths, just to save money.
This is the first time that in Italy a CEO is charged with murder (instead of manslaughter) for having caused the death of employees as consequence of neglecting safety standards.

What do you think about it?

After the collapse of the Roman Empire, you'd think the Italians would know the term "Shit happens"... Accidents happen, Dr. Guariniello needs to realize that. Yes, maybe the CEO cut corners to cut costs, but honestly, which businessman isn't? The purpose of business is to churn out a profit... God forbid the CEO do that. Guariniello is acting like the CEO plotted and schemed to whack all the workers in an "accidental" fire in some sort of evil plot for world domination.

After the collapse of the Roman Empire, you'd think the Italians would know the term "Shit happens"... Accidents happen, Dr. Guariniello needs to realize that. Yes, maybe the CEO cut corners to cut costs, but honestly, which businessman isn't? The purpose of business is to churn out a profit... God forbid the CEO do that. Guariniello is acting like the CEO plotted and schemed to whack all the workers in an "accidental" fire in some sort of evil plot for world domination.Yeah, who cares about a couple workers that could have been saved at the cost of some profit...

After the collapse of the Roman Empire, you'd think the Italians would know the term "Shit happens"... Accidents happen, Dr. Guariniello needs to realize that. Yes, maybe the CEO cut corners to cut costs, but honestly, which businessman isn't? The purpose of business is to churn out a profit... God forbid the CEO do that. Guariniello is acting like the CEO plotted and schemed to whack all the workers in an "accidental" fire in some sort of evil plot for world domination.

Shit happens, and it happens even from some people's mouth.

Yes, maybe Al Capone cut corners to cut costs, but honestly, which businessman isn't? Yes, maybe the CEO of Bhopal cut corners to cut costs; yes, maybe the CEO of the nazi industries cut corners to cut costs... etc etc.
"Everyone does so" isn't an excuse.

It's definitely an overreach regardless of the degree of neglect. People who have done much more direct and negligent actions were charged with homicide. I in no way approve of the "CEO's actions", but the law should be used as the law, not as a way to punish people you don't like.
What makes you think that the Italian authorities "don't like" the Thyssen 6?

As the very linked article says,

I.e. this involves actual actions that have clearly caused death.
Not following new safety regulations in no way constitutes that. No degree of neglect would constitute murder.
Since when have you been an expert in Italian law? Negligence leading to death may very well count as murder in Italy.
The workers have voluntarily signed up for a high-risk job, they have made some mistakes, someone has died.
How have you concluded that the workers made mistakes?

And of course, the very existence of safety regulations in Italy shows that the whole "they signed up for a high risk job" thing won't hold water.
The fact that the company could put in precautions to prevent these deaths doesn't make them murderers.
No, the fact that they didn't take those precautions is what has them facing chargers.


The reason I put "CEO's actions" in quotes is that 99% of the time it's not the CEO, but some subordinate who violated the rules, and the CEO merely wasn't aware of that, but gets charged as he's got the highest rank.
What an insight. Now it's clear to me why there are 6 people facing charges, not one CEO. :rolleyes:
What about this, then?


The infamous Ford Pinto memo.
<snip>
The executives were acquitted on all criminal charges.
Aside from the fact that this clearly demonstrates that company execs can be charged for this kind of thing, this happened in America. America=/=Italy. There may be some fundamental difference in laws that would allow it in Italy where it doesn't in America.


You know, apart from the fact it is allowed in America.
After the collapse of the Roman Empire, you'd think the Italians would know the term "Shit happens"... Accidents happen, Dr. Guariniello needs to realize that. Yes, maybe the CEO cut corners to cut costs, but honestly, which businessman isn't?
Lots of people doing it doesn't make it ok. Lots of people refused to hire women. Lots of people kept slaves.
The purpose of business is to churn out a profit... God forbid the CEO do that.
At unnecessary risk to human life, yes, I'd quite like some god or other to forbid it, if I thought it would achieve anything.
Guariniello is acting like the CEO plotted and schemed to whack all the workers in an "accidental" fire in some sort of evil plot for world domination.

Eh, no, he's acting like the CEO and 5 others knowingly refused to make the factory more safe, and thus an accident occurred, and thus some employees died.

Hey, but who gives a shit? They were just trying to make money, right?

It's italy. Nobody goes to prison, even in the extremely unlikely event they get convicted.

We shouldn't judge by our Nazi anglo american jurisprudential standards.

They neglected Rule 1 of dealing with the Italian government/legal system:

Have your wallet ready.

Okay, on the topic of prosecution CEOs:
So if we are to blame CEOs for deaths of workers, what about world wide deaths on the account of poor conditions in factories? Do US or European CEOs deserve to be charged for that?

Many say yes, and to an extent I would say yes as well. But there is some hesitancy on my part. I say that because many times heads of big businesses do not know what goes on inside local plants or companies all the time. More than likely they are only given quarterly reports on what is going on, and that likely gets sent up through the hierarchy. So by the time it reaches the top, it might be a diluted report of what is going on in the company.

That being said, I believe that those directly in charge of a factory/store/whatever should be charged with murder/manslaughter/neglect if something happens under their watch. They are the ones that observe the conditions. They are the ones entrusted with making sure operations run smoothly on a local basis. If the prosecution of their misdeeds doesn't solve the problem, THEN you work up the ladder, going to maybe the regional supervisor, then to who ever, until the problem stops.

Okay, on the topic of prosecution CEOs:
So if we are to blame CEOs for deaths of workers, what about world wide deaths on the account of poor conditions in factories? Do US or European CEOs deserve to be charged for that?

If the US or European CEOs are in direct charge of that factory, and they deliberately violated the local laws about factory conditions, hell yes they should.

Okay, on the topic of prosecution CEOs:
So if we are to blame CEOs for deaths of workers, what about world wide deaths on the account of poor conditions in factories? Do US or European CEOs deserve to be charged for that?Irrelevant, seeing as it's the CEO of the Italian division of Thyssen-Krupp that's been charged.