Mesothelioma Resource

In the days after the W.R. Grace verdict there appears to be plenty of blame to go around. Some fault the prosecutors. But Canda Harbaugh writes for The Western News that some Libby residents are angry at the judge, U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy.

“’When you have a judge like Molloy,’ Libby resident Dale Herreid said Friday, ‘you know where the case is going – right down the toilet, just like it did.’

“Herreid, who suffers from the effects of asbestos exposure, said he has followed the trial closely since it began in February. He believes that Molloy withheld pertinent information from the jury through controversial evidentiary rulings.

“’He wouldn’t let the jury hear the evidence,’ Herreid said. ‘You can’t really blame the jury when the judge didn’t allow the information to be heard.’”

Len Iwanski reports for the Associated Press that others believed the judge was unfair to the prosecution. “He [Molloy] was hostile to the government in court,” University of Michigan Law Professor David Uhlmann said. “Obviously it did not help the government that the judge presiding over the case was so antagonistic.” Uhlmann is a former chief of the environmental crimes section in the U.S. Justice Department.

Judge Molloy had, for example, ruled that 34 asbestos exposure victims who were prosecution witnesses would not be allowed in court except to testify. This decision was reversed by the 95th Circuit Court of Appeals. Molloy also excluded all but seven of the prosecution’s 53 exhibits. Most of these were old documents and memos between high-ranking Grace officials that predated the Clean Air Act’s criminal statute.

Other people who know Judge Molloy defend him as being firm but fair, and a judge who runs a strict courtroom.

Molloy does not have a history of favoring the federal government in court. Last year Judge Molloy reversed a federal government decision to remove gray wolves from the endangered species list. In 2006, he blasted U.S. Attorney William Mercer from the bench, accusing Mercer of federalizing a state case for the sake of political grandstanding.

April 14
Barbara O’Brien

Go to Source