When it came time for grand jurors to consider bringing criminal charges in connection with The Station nightclub fire, prosecutors submitted only three names: Jeffrey and Michael Derderian, the owners of the club, and Daniel Biechele, the tour manager for the rock band who touched off the fire.

West Warwick fire inspector Denis P. Larocque, who had inspected the nightclub several times before the fire, but had failed to cite the Derderians for deadly polyurethane foam that lined the walls and ceiling of their club, never became a subject of the grand jury's deliberations when it came time to consider indictments.

According to grand jury testimony released yesterday by the office of Atty. Gen. Patrick C. Lynch, while reviewing evidence in connection with the Feb. 20, 2003 fire that killed 100 people, the grand jurors asked prosecutors to bring in an expert witness who could provide information about fire investigations, including an explanation of state and local fire codes, what type of inspections the Town of West Warwick was supposed to do, if there was a difference between an annual inspection and a license transfer application and "whether there were any standards for inspections, checklists or national standards."

The prosecutors mulled over the grand jurors' request, then told them that "before we go any further" that they wanted the grand jurors to know that under Rhode Island law, the state fire marshal or anyone assisting him or deputized by him to carry out inspections is immune from criminal or civil liability unless there is proof that they acted in bad faith or with malice.

Prosecutor Michael Stone told the grand jurors, "Like I say, whether you agree with it, whether you disagree with it, it's the law of the State of Rhode island and the law that we must follow."

Based on that, Stone asked, "do you still wish to hear from a witness to answer the questions that you previously asked about the town of West Warwick, the fire marshal's duties, inspections and types of inspections that are done?"

One grand juror asked Stone to define "bad faith."

Stone replied: "I think our legal interpretation of bad faith would be that the person would have to be, you know, acting and knowing that there's something wrong and ignoring it for some particular purpose and the maliciously would be equal to an evil intent almost as in, you know, the maliciousness you need for committing any crime.

"You really have to find, and there would have to be evidence to show, that the person either knew there was something wrong and ignored it purposely or perhaps was doing it for other reasons, maybe for pecuniary gain or something like that, but as far as acting in good faith and without malice, they're exempt from civil or criminal liability. Yes, sir."

"Why have a fire marshal?" the grand juror retorted. "If the fire marshal did nothing, not responsible for anything, why have a fire marshal? There's no use in having a fire marshal."

"Sir, you would have to ask the General Assembly that," Asst. Atty. Gen. William Ferland told him.

"Yes," said Stone. "That's the statute they enacted and I will say one other thing is, you know, regardless of what this yes, you know, we're all responsible, you know, for knowing the law, I mean for -for obeying the law as it stands. You can't get around that, so I'm telling you that this statute in this instance, in our opinion, would relieve a fire marshal from performing his duties in good faith and without malice for any act or omission that he may have or may not have committed."

A grand juror then asked the prosecutor "so for malice, I wrote down evil intent."

"Correct," said Ferland.

"Yes," echoes Stone.

"What kind of words can I put down for bad faith?" the grand juror asked.

Ferland then launched on a long explanation of malice which he said included "a conscious intent on the part of the actor."

But “what about bad faith?’’ the grand juror pressed. “Can you give us an example of bad faith? Let me ask you a question. If someone works for the Department of Labor & Training and their job is to go out and see if a list of companies have Workers’ Compensation, and they turn in a report that says, yeah, okay ABC Company, I checked them, they got Workers’ Comp, when, in fact, they don’t have Workers’ Comp and the employee was really just not doing their job, would that be considered bad faith or just lousy workmanship?”

“Well, that’s difficult,” Ferland replied. “You are asking me to qualify or give you the quality of that act, which I can’t do, because that would be my subjective interpretation of that.”

Another grand juror asked the prosecutors what the rationale was behind the General Assembly enacting such the statute which, in most cases, would protect fire inspectors from being held liable.

"It would be pure speculation on out part to say what the rationale is," said Ferland.

"One thing to consider though is that many of these fire inspectors…are volunteer fire fighters and they perform these duties on behalf of fire districts, local fire districts in a volunteer capacity, so one thing that the General Assembly could have had in mind -and this is mere speculation-is that you're not going to find many people coming out and volunteering their time to conduct such inspections if they know they are going to be liable for negligently performing those tasks, and so in an effort to encourage people to volunteer their time in a day and age when we still rely heavily upon volunteer fire fighters, the General Assembly may, in its infinite wisdom, have decided to provide this prophylactic protection to those people who are willing to go forward."

Denis P. Larocque was not a volunteer fire inspector. He was employed as a full-time firefighter, with benefits, for the Town of West warwick and is still employed there. He now makes $55,931.

Ferland told the grand jurors: "Whether we agree with the wisdom of the General Assembly or not, it is irrelevant. We can talk about how outrageous it might be that a particular statute was enacted or not enacted but we are duty bound to follow the law whether we agree with it or we don't."

The grand jury then indicted the Derderians and Biechele, the road manager for the band Great White, the man who ignited the pyrotechnics. Biechele and Michael Derderian are in prison. Jeffrey Derderian received a suspended sentence.