Zane Floyd was convicted of killing four people in a Las Vegas supermarket in 1999. Floyd pleaded guilty and was sentenced to death.
In 1988, Richard Farley killed seven people at his workplace in Sunnyvale, California. He currently resides on death row at San Quentin.
In 1982 George Banks, a former prison guard, killed 13 people, including five of his children, in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. Banks was given the death penalty.
In 1987 Ronald Simmons, Sr., a retired Air Force Sergeant, killed 14 members of his family and two others in Russellville, Arkansas. Simmons died by lethal injection in 1990.
The appropriate punishment for repeated deliberate violation of mine safety laws that foreseeably resulted in deaths of 29 miners should be death.
As to Don Blankenship, death by lethal injection.
As to Massey Energy, all nine of its primary subsidiaries and their 98 junior subsidiaries, death by cancellation and revocation of corporate charters.
Well established law holds that the perpetrator of a crime is not entitled to the benefits of the crime, either directly or indirectly. This principle explains why Charles Manson would not be allowed to receive proceeds from sale of a book he contemplated writing about his crimes. Similar but harsher principles form the basis of numerous federal and state forfeiture of property laws.
Forfeiture of property laws should be applied to a corporation that intentionally commits 39,000 crimes in five years. All of its assets should be forfeited to the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration and state agencies, after payment of benefits to the families of the 29 victims.
Adequate funds would be available to pay those benefits. As of the market close on Monday April 12, the market cap of Massey Energy was $4.38 billion. Assuming a fire sale at 25 cents on the dollar, sale of Massey assets to competitors would provide over $1 billion for the families of the victims.
No clearer example of a continuing course of criminal corporate conduct resulting in mass murder exists. The time to proceed with criminal trials with death penalties for corporate persons and their human person leader is now.
Chuck Simpson
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