PROVIDENCE — The judge who handled the Station fire criminal cases says crime victims and their families aren’t in the position to tell him what sentences he should impose because they are often focused on their loss and not on the criminal charges or pleas that dictate sentencing options.

Superior Court Judge Francis J. Darigan Jr. has said little publicly about the nightclub fire criminal proceedings since they concluded, but on Wednesday he was a panelist at a symposium titled “Rights of Crime Victims, Witnesses and Defendants,” which was held as part of the centennial of the federal courthouse in downtown Providence.

For most of the discussion, Darigan spoke in general terms about the statements that crime victims are entitled to give prior to sentencing defendants.

“I don’t think that the victim’s family or the victim is really qualified to give me an opinion as to what the sentence ought to be because, as we all know, in many cases you can never satisfy the bereaved family of a victim of crime,” Darigan said. “So if we had the death penalty, most people would be asking for the death penalty. The statute does not allow it, nor do I.”

Darigan said he didn’t want to “dwell” on the Station fire cases “because it was a very difficult, highly unusual set of circumstances involving victim input and victims’ rights that probably and hopefully will never be experienced by anybody again.”

But at one point, the judge said, “The people, unfortunately, who are so greatly affected by the act that brings them to the courtroom don’t have a real legal understanding of either the nature of the charge, or the charge that has been pled to. And that, in large respect, was the case with the Station fire.”

Darigan said relatives of fire victims “were looking past the charge — what the defendants pled to — and looked at the sentence only in the light of their terrible loss, when there would have been no sentence that this court could have imposed that would have in any way reflected the worth or value of the loss of their loved one.”

But, he said, “That’s why we have to follow the law. That’s why we have to preserve the decorum of the court. And that’s why we have to, when we can, allow those kinds of expressions of true impact as to how the crime has impacted on the person or the family.”

Wednesday will mark the fifth anniversary of the Feb. 20, 2003, fire, which began when pyrotechnics used by the rock band Great White ignited highly flammable polyurethane foam that had been installed on the club’s walls and ceiling as soundproofing. The blaze killed 100 people and injured more than 200 others.

The owners of the nightclub, brothers Michael A. and Jeffrey A. Derderian, pleaded no contest to 100 counts of involuntary manslaughter — one for each person who died in the fire. And the band manager who triggered the pyrotechnics, Daniel M. Biechele, pleaded guilty to 100 counts of involuntary manslaughter. Michael Derderian and Biechele were given four-year prison sentences but both will be paroled before serving their entire terms. Jeffrey Derderian received a suspended prison term and was ordered to perform 500 hours of community service.

Darigan imposed the sentences after hearing hours of wrenching statements from relatives of those who died in the blaze, and both the judge and Attorney General Patrick C. Lynch ended up being criticized over the plea arrangements and the sentences.

One of Biechele’s lawyers, Peter A. DiBiase, also was on the panel Wednesday, and he said Darigan “very properly controlled” the process by which victims’ families addressed the court.

DiBiase, a criminal defense lawyer who has practiced in federal and state court for more than 30 years, said state law does not give crime victims the right to speak directly to defendants, to point at them or to berate and threaten them in any way. But, he said, “Unfortunately, these things do happen from time to time.”

So, DiBiase said, he tries to have conferences with judges and prosecutors to set up protocols.

“This is particularly important in negligent homicide cases, which I think are always extremely emotional on both sides,” he said. “On the one side, you usually have a defendant who is a very law-abiding person, who never intended to inflict any kind of injury. On the other side, there’s a grief-stricken family member who has suffered the ultimate loss, usually the death of a child, a spouse, a parent.”

If the process is not controlled, DiBiase said, “The emotions often get control of the participants and you have a situation that should never take place in a courtroom. I don’t think there is any case that underscores this point more than the Station fire. I can’t imagine any proceeding that could have been as emotionally charged as the sentencing in that case. However, in that case, the court very properly controlled the [victim statement] process.”

Darigan held conferences to set out the logistics and protocols for the victim statements, and “when you are dealing with over 100 victims, this is a massive undertaking for the court,” DiBiase said.

No one could have prepared for the powerful emotions that emerged as family members of victims spoke during a four-hour hearing, DiBiase said. The clerk and stenographer never stopped crying, and at some point all of the lawyers broke down, he said.

But, DiBiase said, “As emotional as this proceeding was, it was at all times professional and it was at all times appropriate.” And he came away with a greater appreciation of how important the victim input can be in sentencing — when done properly.

“I don’t have a right to speak for the victims,” DiBiase said. But, he said, “It appeared that the victims being able to talk about their loved ones in some way seemed to help in the grieving process. For a few, it also provided them with an important opportunity to express some measure of forgiveness to my client.”

And from Biechele’s perspective, DiBiase said, “it was equally important because he wanted an opportunity to express his remorse and repentance not only to the court but to the family of these victims. He felt he had a moral obligation to do this, and he thought about it for a good period of time.”

Darigan said he followed the same procedures for victim input in the Station fire cases as he does in every case.

His philosophy, he said, is “This is a court of law where the trial judge — or the judge taking the plea or imposing the sentence after trial — has a very particular and difficult job to do, and that’s one thing: To fashion a sentence that is appropriate to the nature and extent of the crime, taking into consideration the impact that crime has had on that person or the family of the deceased. Nothing more.”

Judges read presentence reports, gathering information about both defendants and victims, Darigan said. And he said he always reads letters from people who knew either the defendants or the victims.

But Darigan said he sets limits and tells lawyers on both sides: “This is not the memorial service for the victim, regardless of how heinous the crime, how heart-rending it may be.”

For example, Darigan said, “I do not allow any pictures to be brought in of the deceased to be put on easels, artifacts, any public demonstrations.”

People sometimes try to sidestep those restrictions. For example, he said that when teens are killed by drunken drivers, classmates will sometimes come to court wearing T-shirts bearing photos of the deceased teen. He said he has allowed the T-shirts but he has always spoken to those teens, explaining that he expects their cooperation in the legal proceedings.

Darigan said he does not allow victims to speak directly to defendants. He said that in a case handled by another judge, a victim’s relative began pointing at the defendant, “calling him every name in the book,” and then without warning pulled out a box containing the victim’s ashes and plopped it in front of the defendant. “Now I think that’s totally inappropriate and I don’t allow that,” Darigan said. “I make sure that people are aware of that — not because I’m insensitive, not because I’m hard-hearted or not because I don’t care what the victims of crime feel like — but because I’m trying to follow the law.”

Darigan said the law allows “a family member” to address the court. “And that’s what I allow — a family member,” he said. “Now if two or three people want to stand with the person [addressing] the court, as a gesture of love and support, that’s fine. But one person addresses the court because that’s what the law says — it’s not what I say.”

Darigan acknowledged that other judges “allow a far greater latitude with regard to many of the things that I’ve said.”

But, he said, “By following those guidelines, and by doing it in a manner that’s clearly understood by all, I have not had a problem in addressing those kinds of issues in many, many, many cases that I have had where emotions are running high. And I think it adds dignity to the proceeding. It focuses everybody as to why they’re here.”

efitzpat@projo.com