18 THE CHRONICLE OF STURBRIDGE COUNTRY LIVINGTHE STURBRIDGE
TIMES MAGAZINE
r MUSINGS FROM LONG HILLs
BY RICHARD MORCHOE
LEVELING THE PLAYING FIELD
Strict liability means that you have to pay evenits not your
fault. Consider, for example, theowner of a tiger rescue center who
keeps his tigersin certified tiger cages. If a tiger escapes and
eatssomeone, the owner is liable for damages, even ifnothing was
wrong with the tiger cage and theowner did nothing to allow the
tiger to escape.
Okay, so you dont own a tiger, or other danger-ous animal, but
you might own a dog. And in Mas-sachusetts, as in most
jurisdictions, you are strictlyliable for injuries caused by your
dog. So if it bitesanother dog, youre liable for the injuries even
ifyour German shepherd never bit anyone beforeand it wasnt your
fault the leash broke just as thattasty little Chihuahua sauntered
by.
The concept also is commonly applied in prod-uct liability
cases. Someone injured by a productonly has to prove one thing that
the productcaused their injury. They dont have to prove theperson
or company that made the product did any-thing wrong.
In the criminal context it is applied to peoplewho get caught
speeding. As youve probably foundout, much to your chagrin, youre
liable even if youdidnt know what the speed limit was.
Strict liability imposes an obligation on people,and companies,
to be extra vigilant when engagingin inherently dangerous activity,
such as owningtigers (and dogs) and manufacturing lawn mowers.It
also imposes an obligation on people to extracareful when
interacting with vulnerable groups ofpeople.
Sex, for instance, might not be inherently dan-gerous, but sex
with children certainly is.
And for this reason, a person can be found guiltyof statutory
rape even if that person might havereasonably believed that the
13-year-old he washaving sex with was actually 16-year-old.
He should have known, even if he didnt.
LEGALBRIEF
STRICT LIABILITY
M O N T H L Y L E G A L A D V I C E
F O R R E A D E R S O F
T H E S T U R B R I D G E T I M E S M A G A Z I N E
STURBRIDGE ATTORNEY
ROBERT A. GEORGE, ESQ.
The Tsarnaev trial and sentence are overand after an appeal
process of indefinitelength, he will probably be executed.
Post-sentencing, the prosecution team in-dulged in not a little
self-congratulation. Un-derstandable, but not completely fair.
Thedefense had little to work with. He was a lowlife stoner who
supposedly was the tool of aSvengali brother. That argument sounded
alittle like the old Nuremberg excuse of I vasjust following
orders. The war crimes tribu-nal didn't buy it and the jury in
Boston didn'teither.
The press confab used words like justiceand closure with
confidence and certainty.Each of the relatives and wounded
survivorsmay or not have closure. What they most cer-tainly do not
have is justice. Only turningback time to the day of the Marathon
andchanging history could be justice and that isnot possible.
Since 2013, Massachusetts has been thevenue of three notorious
criminal prosecu-tions. They bid fair to be considered the
mostinfamous of the century so far and will be dif-ficult to
top.
First there was the case of gangster JamesWhitey Bulger. After
years on the run, hewas captured and despite the tough guy rep,went
meekly with captors.
Like Tsarnaev, the case against Whitey was
extensive and did not leave the jury muchleeway to find him
other than guilty. Thetrial was in state court and, as the
Common-wealth does not allow the death penalty, hewill live on, at
least for a while. Bulger facesprosecution for murder in Oklahoma
andFlorida.
On Long Hill, we confess ambivalenceabout the death penalty.
There is the oldsaying that our justice system occasionallylets a
guilty defendant go free, but makes upfor it by hanging an
innocent. Whatevercan be done to make sure we don't allow
aguiltless man or woman to die, such as DNAtesting, should happen.
That's why juriesare instructed to apply the standard of be-yond a
reasonable doubt.
In the case of the Terror of Southie,there is little room for
that. He is not merelya murderer, but a serial killer. Our
consid-ered opinion up on Long Hill is go Florida,go Okies.
The third big trial was of bad boy foot-ball player Aaron
Hernandez. Mr. Hernan-dez, until his legal troubles, was a high
paidathlete who appeared to enjoy living on theedge. Because of his
association with theNew England Patriots, the news coveragewas
unending. He was found guilty of mur-der after trial.
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19THE CHRONICLE OF STURBRIDGE COUNTRY LIVING THE STURBRIDGE
TIMESMAGAZINE
The cases highlighted a glaring deficiencyin our justice system.
Fame and/or fortune de-termine the representation a defendant can
ex-pect.
An average resident of Sturbridge, if ar-rested for a major
crime, can expect to go brokepaying for legal assistance. If
without resourcesto begin with, a public defender of indetermi-nate
quality can be scrounged up or a plea of-fered.
The aforementioned three convicts had noworries when it came to
representation. Mr.Hernandez possessed no discernible talentother
than the ability to catch a football. Whatthat says about us as a
society is a discussion foranother time. What it meant for Aaron
wasthat he received oodles of cash from his em-ployer and could
afford a top notch legal team.
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was indigent. His fam-ily had received asylum
even though they hadbeen under little danger in their homeland.The
clan had subsisted on public assistance andsome legally dubious
endeavors. Mom couldnot visit her son during his trial as she had
atheory that one should be able to shop in highend stores without
paying. If she were to re-turn, the long arm of the law would like
to dis-cuss that with her. Apparently, it is not aconversation she
is anxious to have.
How did the country whose citizens heattacked treat him? We
provided him withlawyers who were selfless in their effort to
keephim away from lethal injection. They were also
a crew you and I probably could never af-ford.
Whitey Bulgers ill-gotten gains were vast.All that was found on
him was seized and anymoney he may have squirreled away is be-yond
his reach. Not to worry, he too had theA-Team on defense.
One may say, so what, they were all foundguilty? That is beside
the point. Lawyers costa lot, and why not? Their education is
notcheap and unless born to the manor must befinanced. Decent
office space is not givenaway.
Unless the state takes an interest, as it hasin the high profile
cases, penury results fromprosecution.
Could there be a solution? Fortunately,our official think tank,
the Long Hill Institutefor Legal Studies, or the LHIfLS for short,
ison the case (pun intended).
The LHIfLS notes that we have public,not private prosecutors.
Obviously, it wouldhave been an injustice to have required
thefamilies of the victims to foot the bill for thetrials. In the
same vein, why should the no-torious and rich get representation
superiorto the average citizen?
Therefore, our think tank proposes thatthere be the elected
office of District De-fender as there is District Attorney.
Politicians are always calling for a levelplaying field as they
take huge donations frominterests that want to keep it de-leveled.
Here
is a chance to do something.After all why should someone with
billions
get better representation than the average cit-izen? Why should
say a Bill Gates who con-tends to be the richest man in the world
get abreak just because he got wealthy peddlingoverpriced, annoying
software.
Okay, Gates will probably never kill any-one, he is too smart.
He should be prose-cuted for the software and not be able to hireF.
Lee Bailey or Alan Dershowitz to get off.If a bureaucrat
prosecutes, then another gov-ernment employee should defend him or
us.
