In the wake of a Wall Street Journal report that Boeing didn’t share information about a problem with a cockpit safety alert for about a year before the issue drew attention with the October crash of a 737 MAX jet in Indonesia, Judge Andrew Napolitano went on Fox News to claim that Boeing has a big legal problem – criminally negligent homicide.
“The real problem, and I’m sorry to use this phrase, is criminally negligent homicide,” Judge Napolitano said on the Fox Business show Morning with Maria. “There is a potential for prosecutors to make that claim. The failure to comply with a legal obligation to inform the carrier, the airline, of a defect in the software when that failure arguably resulted in death is the definition of criminally negligent homicide.”
“Boeing’s problems are quite serious.”
Judge Napolitano was asked – “But those are under U.S. law. Wouldn’t the (legal) action if they were criminal be in the jurisdiction where the crime took place?”
“The crime, if it was a crime, would have taken place when and where Boeing (plane) was either manufactured or where Boeing’s executives made the decision — whoever made the decision — I’m not saying it was (Boeing CEO Dennis) Muilenberg personally, there is no evidence of that – where they were when the decision was made.”
“The United States has claimed something called extraterritoriality — meaning that if there is harm caused in the United States to an entity, corporation or a human being, even if the act of the harm was caused elsewhere, federal prosecutors can prosecute here. I’m not suggesting that there should be a prosecution. But I’m telling you that there is a potential for one. And it would not surprise me if we hear soon that federal prosecutors have commenced an investigation.”
In the past, federal prosecutors have brought manslaughter charges against major American corporations.
In 2013, BP was forced to plead guilty to manslaughter in connection with the deaths of 11 workers who died in the 2010 explosion and fire on the Deepwater Horizon rig in the Gulf of Mexico.