What we learned from Kent State:
Legal liability for the Virginia Tech massacre: lessons of earlier mass shootings?
Jim Castagnera
Part 1 in a series
The April 16th Virginia Tech massacre sent editors and writers scurrying to their microfiche and video vaults, and lawyers to case law. But arguably America’s most notorious campus killing spree was the May 4, 1970 shooting of 13 students in about as many seconds on Kent State’s campus. It has retained the public eye into the new millennium, thanks chiefly to a 2001 Emmy-winning documentary and Reporter-Novelist Philip Caputo’s 2005 book.
In the lingo of American tort (that is, personal injury) law, Virginia Tech more closely resembles the
On
Immediately after the shootings, officials attempted to blame the protesters. On May 15, the Portage County Prosecutor displayed a shotgun, a pistol, machetes, cap pistols, slingshots and BB guns confiscated from dorm rooms. The ACLU labeled the search illegal and its fruits “meager.”
On June 6, the
The legal tide seemed to turn on June 10, when the parent of a dead student filed suit in federal court, asking $6 million against the governor and the guard commanders for “intentionally and maliciously disregarding” students’ safety. On June 23, a U.S. Department of Justice report concluded the shootings “were not necessary and not in order.” Wrongful death suits followed from the other three decedents’ families.
Meanwhile, the pendulum took another swing, as a special grand jury indicted students and faculty for riot, assault and incitement. After unsuccessfully fighting the charges all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, a number of these defendants were eventually fined and imprisoned.
All four of the wrongful-death actions were dismissed on the ground of
In 1975’s Krause v. Rhodes, which consolidated all four decedents’ wrongful death claims, a federal jury found the defendants not liable by a 9-3 vote, but the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals ordered a new trial. As legal wrangling over campus construction that would obliterate the scene of the shootings dragged on, the parties settled for $675,000 in 1979. The four families had sought a grand total of $46 million.
While the settlement amount was relatively small, the cost to Kent State was enormous in terms of legal costs, distraction from the core mission, faculty imprisonment and damage to the school’s reputation.
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