Legal News

Grace Case to Go On, Rules Judge

By Ashby Jones

We’d been bracing ourselves for a big ruling out of the Missoula, Mont., chambers of Donald Molloy, who’d recently been asked by defense lawyers to dismiss the criminal charges filed against chemical-products maker W.R. Grace. Judge Molloy had recently expressed, uh, displeasure over the government’s failing to turn over documents and with the testimony of a government witness.

But the show will go on! On Tuesday, Judge Molloy ruled that despite the "failings" of federal prosecutors, he would not dismiss the criminal charges. Click here for the NYT story; here for the take from the Grace Case blog; here, here and here for earlier LB posts on the case.

Judge Molloy also said he would not throw out the testimony of the prosecution's star witness, Robert H. Locke, a former Grace executive who Judge Molloy has said lied on the witness stand. That said, Molloy allowed Locke to be recalled before the jury so defense lawyers might challenge the credibility of his testimony. According to the NYT, Molloy instructed the jurors that they should view everything they had heard from Locke with "great skepticism."

Locke had testified that company insiders knew of the dangers of the asbestos-laced vermiculite from the Grace mine and mill in Libby, dating back to the 1970s, and were involved in a conspiracy to cover up the knowledge.

Yesterday, one of the lead defense laywers, Kirkland & Ellis’s David Bernick, tore into him. "The name of the process here is the whole truth, Mr. Locke," he said. Click here for the Grace Case blog’s nice writeup of the cross-examination.

Judge Molloy has not ruled on a defense motion to order an acquittal for lack of evidence.

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on April 29, 2009 (boomark / email).