I blogged recently about the W.R. Grace criminal trial, which started this Monday. As alleged in the indictment, the case involves crimes of “knowingly endangering” the residents of Libby, Montana. The district judge has ruled that these knowing endangerment crimes do not produce “crime victims” because they do not produce actual harm, only threatened danger. Accordingly, the victims could not exercise the right of crime victims to attend the trial, but instead were sequestered as witness.
Yesterday the defense filed their brief in the case. This excerpt gives a feel for the defense argument:
This case, however, is anything but run-of-the-mill, and it perfectly
illustrates the dangers of departing from the hornbook rule that the CVRA