Conception trial begins

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Interesting discussions, but does anyone know what happened in court on Friday?
They did closing arguments and the case has been sent to the jury. Immediate thoughts are:
1. I think the prosecution rested on Wednesday which means Boylan's defense either only spent one day presenting their side or didn't present much of a defense at all??? Seriously??
2. I'd really like to read the judge's instructions to the jury.

This is from this morning's (11/4) L.A. Times. Since their articles are sometimes behind a paywall, I'm copying it here.
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BY CHRISTOPHER GOFFARD
STAFF WRITER
NOV. 4, 2023 3 AM PT

When their bodies were found, 56 feet below the water, some of the victims of the Conception dive boat fire were in mismatched shoes, thrown on in the dark as flames raced toward them. One person died clutching a phone, another a flashlight. Some died huddled together. Two were interlocked so tightly they had to be pried apart.

They died because their captain failed them, prosecutors told a jury Friday in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, arguing that Jerry Boylan was guilty of manslaughter if his negligence caused even one of the 34 deaths aboard his ship over Labor Day weekend in 2019.

“He was the first to abandon the ship, the first to jump in the water,” Asst. U.S. Atty. Brian Faerstein told jurors in his closing argument.

Ignoring “basic rules of prudent seamanship” and the Certificate of Inspection requirements hanging in his own wheelhouse, prosecutors said, Boylan failed to order a roving night watch as people slept in a windowless bunk room below deck.

It amounted to “a roll of the dice every night that his passengers went to sleep ... in the remote and isolated waters of the Pacific Ocean,” Faerstein said.

Boylan had been a boat captain for 34 years and should have known the danger of fire, prosecutors said, and a roving night watch would have spotted the blaze before it raged out of control before dawn on Sept. 2, 2019, while the Conception was anchored off Santa Cruz Island.

Boylan also neglected to train his inexperienced crew in fire safety, giving only perfunctory instruction on where equipment was located, prosecutors said, and when he woke up to find the fire spreading on his boat, he was the first to jump into the water.

The Conception had two 50-foot-long fire hoses that could pump water into the boat from the ocean. Prosecutors said galley hand Michael Kohls, who had worked with Boylan for two years, did not know where the hoses were, and twice ran right by a hose during the fire, even as 34 people awaited rescue.
“You literally had the Pacific Ocean as your reservoir if you’re using these hoses,” Faerstein said. “He had an opportunity to take that fire hose out.”

Boylan called in a mayday before jumping overboard, actions that Faerstein characterized as “tantamount to giving up,” faulting Boylan for not using the public address system to alert passengers that there was a fire, perhaps giving them a chance to save themselves.

“These people were not a lost cause,” Faerstein said. “Smoke was coming in, but they still had a chance.”
Because safety training was so slipshod, Faerstein said, chaos ensued among crew when the fire spread through the boat. “There was no muscle memory. There was no automatic response. There was panic,” he said. “Having no training, they all went their own way — every man for himself.”

Prosecutors pointed to the account of crew member Ryan Sims, who testified that he approached Boylan about safety procedures on the day before the fatal fire, and that Boylan rebuffed him with a chuckle.
“He said, ‘When we get to it, Ryan,’” Faerstein said. “That’s how he felt about safety procedures.”

In her closing argument to jurors Friday, one of Boylan’s attorneys, Georgina Wakefield, disputed that the chuckle suggested Boylan’s indifference to his passengers’ safety.

“I don’t think a chuckle is nefarious,” Wakefield said. “You can interpret it however you want, but I don’t think it means anything.”

Wakefield said her client was not the coward the government painted him as, and that when he woke up, the encroaching flames were already 15 feet tall, confronting him with “an impossible situation.”

She said Boylan had done things “the Fritzler way” for decades, referring to boat owner Glen Fritzler, who did not require a roving night watch. “Jerry cared. ... He could have done better,” Wakefield said. “There absolutely should have been a roving patrol.” But he did not know he was endangering people’s lives, she said. “He didn’t know he should have done anything differently.” The fire was a tragedy but not the fault of a man “making a day wage at 66 years old.”

Wakefield zeroed in on the 39 minutes between the time the last Conception crew member went to sleep, 2:35 a.m., and the time Boylan woke up and called in the mayday, 3:14 a.m. The fire started and became “an unstoppable inferno” during that interval, she said, suggesting that a roving patrol might not have helped.

“A roving patrol that walks around once every hour would not have changed what happened here,” Wakefield said.

By condemning Boylan’s behavior, the government was implying “that Jerry should have stayed on the boat, and he should have died,” Wakefield said. If he had, she said, prosecutors would have looked for someone else to blame.

Families of the Conception victims have filled the courtroom in downtown Los Angeles during the eight-day trial, the testimony punctuated by the sound of their stifled weeping. For the families, one of the hardest pieces of evidence to bear was the 24-second video taken from the iPhone of Patricia Ann Beitzinger, an Arizona woman who died on the boat.

She took the video at 3:17 a.m., three minutes after Boylan’s mayday call. The video, played early in the trial and again Friday, shows the dark outlines of people trapped in the bunk room as the fire approaches. The voices are muffled and difficult to hear, but prosecutors supplied a transcript to jurors:
“There’s got to be a way out...”
“There’s got to be more extinguishers...”
“We’re gonna die...”

The jury will begin deliberating Boylan’s fate Monday morning. He could face 10 years in prison if convicted.
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She said Boylan had done things “the Fritzler way” for decades, referring to boat owner Glen Fritzler, who did not require a roving night watch. “Jerry cared. ... He could have done better,” Wakefield said. “There absolutely should have been a roving patrol.” But he did not know he was endangering people’s lives, she said. “He didn’t know he should have done anything differently.” The fire was a tragedy but not the fault of a man “making a day wage at 66 years old.”

You can refuse to take the boat out to sea, and if he replaces you with someone willing to go along with those procedures report him to the USCG.

Same as a pilot for an airline, they don't set procedure but a pilot can refuse to fly the plane.

I don't know about USCG and the captains program, but this is emphasized in aviation. Sure you need a damned good reason or be branded as am unemployable troublemaker, but if something deviants from regulations and is unsafe it is your responsibility to not to take command.
 
I can't find the one I was looking for but there's this, which includes the warning: "Fire in lithium-ion batteries can be fierce and very unpredictable, emitting large amounts of extremely toxic gasses." Many of you seem to be under the impression that this fire could have been easily contained and that one battery going off wouldn't trigger the others. That may or may not be true and it again begs the question of, Why weren't some of these simulations done to bolster their case and provide a bit more definitive answers and perspective?

It certainly is a case for smoke hoods as standard equipment near the hoses, but the small device fires are fightable. They don't have the prolonged burning times as cells pop off that larger packs.

When it comes to negligence cases you can't really prove that the death wouldn't have happened without the negligence. Yes I know "Beyond a reasonable doubt" but juries don't always seem to hold cases to that standard. More than likely if they convict they are going to be looking at if the procedures had been followed would there be a reasonable chance for the pax to survive.

That being said regardless if you believe the ATF report, I support requiring most lithium batteries to only be charged in charging cabinets. In fact when I build my new dive locker I am going to build such a cabinet with an automatic fire suppression system.
 
Dr
You can refuse to take the boat out to sea, and if he replaces you with someone willing to go along with those procedures report him to the USCG.

Same as a pilot for an airline, they don't set procedure but a pilot can refuse to fly the plane.

I don't know about USCG and the captains program, but this is emphasized in aviation. Sure you need a damned good reason or be branded as am unemployable troublemaker, but if something deviants from regulations and is unsafe it is your responsibility to not to take command.

So, it seems he didn’t take the stand, leaving his attorney to carry the ball, and blame it on his employer— who got the best deal in the world, in not being prosecuted himself.

If that’s how it ends up, the jury gets less than the whole story. And the families don’t get to see and hear from either of the culprits in their own words. This has to be disappointing to them in their grieving.
 
She said Boylan had done things “the Fritzler way” for decades, referring to boat owner Glen Fritzler, who did not require a roving night watch. “Jerry cared. ... He could have done better,” Wakefield said. “There absolutely should have been a roving patrol.” But he did not know he was endangering people’s lives, she said. “He didn’t know he should have done anything differently.” The fire was a tragedy but not the fault of a man “making a day wage at 66 years old.”
I am willing to bet she managed to say that with a straight face. If I were on the jury and heard the attorney's statement that a lifelong seaman did not know that not having a roving watch would endanger people, and he did not know he should have done it differently, I would think "Bullscat" and not believe another word.
Wakefield zeroed in on the 39 minutes between the time the last Conception crew member went to sleep, 2:35 a.m., and the time Boylan woke up and called in the mayday, 3:14 a.m. The fire started and became “an unstoppable inferno” during that interval, she said, suggesting that a roving patrol might not have helped.

“A roving patrol that walks around once every hour would not have changed what happened here,” Wakefield said.

So when the captain woke up, there were 15 foot flames. I have to believe a roving watch would have spotted trouble before the flames reached 15 feet. Yes, it could have happened very fast, but the passengers had time to wake up, realize something was wrong, get out of bed, put on shoes, and try desperately to get out. Sounds like there was enough time for the crew to pour water on the fire. Of course, they would have to know how to do that, wouldn't they?
 
The fire was a tragedy but not the fault of a man “making a day wage at 66 years old.”
This seems to be the key defense. He is underpaid and old. That makes him innocent.
 
That being said regardless if you believe the ATF report, I support requiring most lithium batteries to only be charged in charging cabinets. In fact when I build my new dive locker I am going to build such a cabinet with an automatic fire suppression system.
Be careful with fire suppression systems for LI fires. Be sure they are designed or at least tested for that purpose.
 
Be careful with fire suppression systems for LI fires. Be sure they are designed or at least tested for that purpose.

I'll be doing my research before I invest. But I do take lithium battery fires seriously. My current charging area is as safe as I can make it without going crazy, and I have an ABC fire extinguisher near by.
 
That the 50' seawater hoses were not known to a two-year crew member--much less the entire complement of crew and passengers--seems to me to justify a strong inference that the lack of proper training was a significant contributing factor to the outcome.
 
This seems to be the key defense. He is underpaid and old. That makes him innocent.
He has already gotten a fairly decent “plea deal” with a ten year max, when they charged him. It’s a cowardly defense especially coming from a licensed Master, “my mean old employer made me not insist on having a roving night watch”. I expect the Coast Guard will jerk his license once this phase is over
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/swift/

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