PROVIDENCE -- The investigation into the fatal fire at The
Station could lead to a host of criminal charges being brought -- or
none at all, depending on what investigators find.
Atty. Gen. Patrick C. Lynch, who has begun a grand jury investigation of
last Thursday's fire that claimed the lives of 97 people and injured 187
others, said in a brief interview the day after the blaze that if the
probe reveals criminal wrongdoing, "the most applicable [charge], if you
look at the cases throughout the country, is involuntary manslaughter."
But lawyers say there are a myriad of other charges that could be
brought, depending on what evidence is uncovered -- ranging from
second-degree felony murder, a crime that carries a maximum of life in
prison, to misdemeanor violations of the state fireworks and
pyrotechnics laws, offenses that carry a penalty of up to a year in the
Adult Correctional Institutions.
Rhode Island has some of the strictest laws in the nation on fireworks.
State law requires that anyone who ignites indoor or outdoor fireworks
displays be licensed by the state fire marshal.
The law requires the person who sets off such devices to first get a
"certificate of competency" from the state fire marshal, and then obtain
a local permit. None was issued in the case of The Station.
To get a certificate of competency, an applicant must demonstrate
experience and ability to display commercial fireworks and present a
certificate that he or she has been examined by a psychiatrist within
the previous 12 months and been deemed stable enough.
Rhode Island law also says that fireworks and pyrotechnics licenses can
be issued only to Rhode Island residents or out-of-staters who retain a
Rhode Island lawyer as their representative; an applicant to possess or
display commercial fireworks in Rhode Island must also present proof to
the appropriate local fire authority that he or she has at least $50,000
worth of insurance "to satisfy claims for damage to property or persons
resulting from the possession or use of fireworks and/or pyrotechnics."
Violations of these laws could land a person in prison for up to one
year.
IN MOST CASES where many people have been killed in stampedes of surging
crowds, victims' families have filed civil court suits for money
damages. There are not nearly as many cases where criminal charges have
been brought, and even fewer where defendants have gone to jail.
Sometimes grand juries refuse to bring indictments in such cases; and
sometimes, trial juries have refused to convict.
One of the most deadly fires in the nation's history was the Cocoanut
Grove nightclub fire in Boston on Nov. 28, 1942, which claimed the lives
of 492 people. There were more than 1,000 people in the club when the
blaze erupted; the club had been designed for a maximum of 600.
The owner of the nightclub, Barnett Welansky, was charged with
involuntary manslaughter, convicted and sentenced to serve 12 to 15
years in state prison. The prosecution premised its case against him,
and jurors found, that Welansky was guilty of wanton or reckless
conduct, primarily for failing to furnish proper emergency exits. The
prosecution also cited overcrowding at the club, defective wiring and
the installation of flammable decorations.
In affirming Welansky's conviction, the Massachusetts Supreme Judical
Court said that usually, wanton or reckless conduct consists of an
affirmative act, such as discharging a firearm or driving an automobile
in disregard of probable harmful consequences to another. But this case
was different, the court said, because the fire occurred "in a place of
public resort" and that "it was enough to prove that death resulted from
defendant's wanton or reckless disregard of the safety of the patrons in
event of a fire from any cause."
"There is a duty of care for the safety of business visitors invited to
premises which the defendant controls," the court said, and "wanton or
reckless conduct may consist of intentional failure to take such care in
disregard of the probable harmful consequences to them or of their right
to care."
Prosecutors, the court said, weren't required to prove that the
defendant himself caused the fire "by some wanton or reckless conduct. .
. . Grave danger to others must have been apparent, and the defendant
must have chosen to run the risk rather than alter his conduct so as to
avoid the act or omission which caused the harm."
There are no cases exactly on point in Rhode Island. The most similar
one dates back nearly 80 years -- stemming from a boiler explosion on
the Mackinac steamer on Aug. 18, 1925, near Newport. Fifty-five people
died and the Mackinac's captain and chief engineer were indicted for
manslaughter and the manager of the company that chartered the ship was
charged with being an accessory before the fact.
In ruling that the prosecution could proceed, the Rhode Island Supreme
Court said "manslaughter could consist, among other things, of doing an
unlawful act resulting in unintentional killing" and that "manslaughter
was likewise committed if an unintentional killing is occasioned by
gross negligence in the doing of an act lawful in itself."
The defendants in the Mackinac case tried to plead no-contest in return
for suspended sentences, but the attorney general wanted them sent to
prison. At trial, all three were acquitted.
THOMAS DICKINSON, an appellate specialist who served as deputy attorney
general in the administration of Jeffrey B. Pine, says that the state
Supreme Court has, on occasion, reviewed involuntary manslaughter
convictions in the years since it considered the Mackinac case in 1926.
The court, he said, has defined involuntary manslaughter an an
unintentional homicide committed without malice aforethought while
performing an unlawful act that does not amount to a felony or while
acting with criminal negligence.
In the case of the fire at The Station, prosecutors conceivably could
make a case that "the unlawful act in this case is the use or possession
of pyrotechnics without a permit," Dickinson said.
Dickinson also said that Rhode Island law "makes it a felony to possess
certain types of fireworks or to possess large quantities of 'relatively
dangerous' fireworks" and if these types of fireworks were present at
The Station Thursday night, second-degree felony murder charges could be
brought.
"Fireworks are broken down into three types under Rhode Island law,"
said Dickinson. "If they are not 'relatively safe' fireworks, however
much you possess or use, it's a felony."
Dickinson said that in their investigation, prosecutors may consider not
just the type of pyrotechnics which set fire to The Station "but
whatever -- if any" was found outside the premises in a truck or bus.
"So the amount could be fluid in the prosecutors' eyes."
Asked whom he believed could be charged in a case of this type,
Dickinson said, "the primary focus would be on whoever lit it [the
pyrotechnics] off and who told them to do it and hired them to do it and
gave them the stuff to light it off."
Potentially, Dickinson said, the club owners and the bank have criminal
liability. But, he added, "it might be hard to prove a homicide case
against the owners unless you can show that they had knowledge the
fireworks were to be used and agreed to it."
Dickinson said that while a homicide case might be hard to prove, there
are underlying lesser potential criminal offenses the owners could be
charged with.
Under state fire laws, he said, "the soundproofing material and curtains
[in a nightclub] are supposed to be flame-retardant."
Andrew Horwitz, a former public defender in Brooklyn, N.Y., who is now a
professor of law at the Ralph Papitto School of Law at Roger Williams
University, says that he thinks it's really too early to tell whether
any serious charges will be brought in connection with the fire at The
Station.
He says the burden for prosecutors is high.
"Accidents happen and not all accidents result in criminal liability,
nor should they," Horwitz said. "One distinct possibility is that there
is no criminal liability here at all. In the normal scheme of things, we
don't criminalize negligence -- the failure to act with a normal degree
of care that reasonable people would exercise. Mere negligence," he
points out, "is normally handled in our civil court system, not our
criminal system."
Horwitz said that based on what the public knows now, "I think it would
be a stretch . . . to go after a felony murder charge. Involuntary
manslaughter is a more plausible theory," he said. "If you do something
that is criminally negligent and it causes a death, that's involuntary
manslaughter."
Horwitz predicted that based on what he now knows, "I think it's going
to be hard to establish serious criminal liability on the part of the
owners of the club." He said "there's a much stronger case" for an
involuntary manslaughter charge against "the people directly involved in
setting off the pyrotechnics. . . ."
IN 1996, a Lynn, Mass., rooming house owner pleaded guilty to four
counts of involuntary manslaughter stemming from a 1989 fire, in what
was believed to be the first manslaughter conviction involving safety
violations in Massachusetts since the Cocoanut Grove fire. Prosecutors
asked that Leo F. Allard be sentenced to prison, but the judge placed
him on probation for five years and ordered him to perform 500 hours of
community service.
Six officers of the Ringling Bothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus were
convicted of involuntary manslaughter in connection with a deadly circus
fire in Hartford, Conn., that killed 168 people and injured almost 700
in 1944. Five were given sentences of two years or less to serve, and
the sixth did not serve any prison time.
After the Happy Land social club fire in the Bronx, N.Y., in 1990 that
killed 87 people, the man who set the blaze in a rage at his estranged
girlfriend was sentenced to the maximum sentence allowed under the law
-- 25 years to life. But the owners of the illegal social club were
never sent to prison. Instead, they were ordered to perform 50 hours of
community service and paid fines.
After the Beverly Hills Supper Club fire in 1977 that killed 165 people
in Southgate, Ky., a grand jury refused to indict the club owners or the
building inspectors for criminal negligence after a five-month
investigation.
And in 1997, a Suffolk County (Mass.) jury acquitted an unlicensed
electrician of involuntary manslaughter -- a case that prosecutors
brought because it was alleged, his "atrocious" wiring that sparked a
basement apartment fire that killed three children, ages 2, 4 and 7.
