Today Judge Reed O'Connor (U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas) granted the Justice Department's motion to dismiss the pending criminal charge against Boeing. In his order, Judge O'Connor essentially agreed with many of the factual objections that I have made for the families who lost loved ones because of Boeing's crime. But, reluctantly, Judge O'Connor dismissed the charge, concluding that he lacked a legal basis for blocking the Department's ill-conceived non-prosecution plan. On behalf of my clients, I will quickly be seeking review of this ruling by the Fifth Circuit. It is hard to understand how a dismissal that is so clearly contrary to the manifest public interest can be upheld.
I've blogged about the Boeing criminal case a number of times before, including here, here, and here. In a nutshell, Boeing lied to the FAA about the safety of its 737 MAX aircraft. The Justice Department charged Boeing with conspiracy for these lies, but then immediately entered into a deferred prosecution agreement (DPA) to resolve the criminal case. In subsequent litigation, I proved that the 346 passengers and crew on board two doomed 737 MAX flights were "crime victims" under the CVRA—they had been directly and proximately harmed by Boeing crime. This makes Boeing's conspiracy crime the "deadliest corporate crime in U.S. history," as Judge O'Connor described it.
But in earlier proceedings, Judge O'Connor concluded that he could not intervene to protect victims' rights, even though the DPA had been negotiated secretly and in violation of the families' CVRA rights. And the Fifth Circuit ruled that any intervention by it was "premature."
