Associated Press Nebraskan I
Edited by Jennifer O'Cilka Thursday> April 25,1991
Judge rejects Exxon Valdez settlement
« Ua uroc cnmncdH Kir iKa
ANCHORAGE, Alaska - A judge
Wednesday derailed a plea bargain in
the$l billion settlement of the Exxon
Valdez oil spill, saying a $100 mil
lion criminal fine was insufficient
punishment for the damage Exxon
did to Alaska’s environment.
Under the plea agreement negoti
ated by the state of Alaska, the Justice
Department and Exxon, the company
would have paid $50 million to the
state of Alaska and $50 million to the
federal government.
A separate proposed settlement of
civil claims provides $900 million in
restitution to clean up Alaska shore
line. With rejection of the fines, Exxon
could withdraw that agreement.
“The fines which were proposed
to me were simply not adequate,”
U.S. District Judge H. Russel Hol
land told a courtroom packed with
attorneys and reporters.
He said he had considered federal
sentencing guidelines and concluded
that $100 million was not enough to
deter future spills.
“There is no question that the Exxon
Valdez oil spill was off the chart,” he
said.
As part of the agreement, Exxon
had pleaded guilty to four misde
meanor pollution charges stemming
from the March 24,1989, oil spill. In
exchange, felony charges were to be
dropped.
Exxon did not immediately with
draws its guilty pleas following
Wednesday’s ruling. The judge gave
the company until May 24 to decide.
The Justice Department said it was
ready to go to trial on the charges if
the pleas are withdrawn.
A Justice official in Washington,
who spoke on condition of anonym
ity, said the department would be
-44 --
The fines which were
proposed to me were
simply not adequate.
Holland
U.S. district judge
-99 -
willing to discuss with Exxon during
the next 30 days whether a new agree
ment could be reached. Any new
agreement would likely either increase
the criminal fine or shift some of the
civil payments to the criminal case in
hopes of satisfying the judge, the
official said.
The Exxon Valdez spilled nearly
11 million gallons of North Slope
crude oil into Prince William Sound
and the Gull ot Alaska auei man
aground on Bligh Reef. Hundreds o
thousands of birds and fish, and hun
dreds of seals and sea otters were
killed. Fishing and tourism were inter
rupted, and the subsistence lifestyle
of Native Alaskan villages was dis
rupted. „ .
An analysis done for The Associ
ated Press in March showed the total
cost to Exxon of the $1 billion settle
ment could have been as little as
$486.3 million if the company took
tax savings on it and purchased an
annuity to make the payments over
10 years.
Exxon spokesman Joe Tucker in
Anchorage said the company had no
immediate comment on the ruling.
“It was one of the options the court
had," said James Neal, lead attorney
for Exxon Shipping Co. and former
counsel for the Watergate special
decision.
“We thought it was a good plea
agreement,” Neal said.
Holland said he rejected the settle
ment because it sent the wrong mes
sage to industry and the public.
“The fines do not adequately
achieve deterrence. They send the
wrong message,” he said.
Alaska Attorney General Charles
Cole said he hoped the rejection of
the criminal plea would not derail the
civil settlement. Under terms of that
agreement, Exxon has 10 days to
withdraw from the civil settlement,
Cole said.
In a statement issued in Washing
ton, Justice Department officials said
they were disappointed with the rul
ing and believe the pleas and fine are
a “just and reasonable” settlement of
the criminal case.
•President supports Sununu,
but promises to review policy
WASHINGTON - President
Bush said Wednesday he would
review the White House travel
policy, suggesting Chief of Staff
John Sununu's extensive travel
aboard government planes has left
a “perception problem.”
Bush said Sununu had his “full
confidence."
“I don’t like this jumping all
over Gov. Sununu when he has
complied with the policy and he’s
made full disclosure. What more
can you ask for?” Bush said in
impromptu comments to reporters
after a send-off for Djibouti Presi
dent Hassan Gouled Aptidon.
Sununu and the Republican Party
reimbursed the government $47,044
for his private travels.
It costs $3,945 an hour to oper
ate the 12-passenger C-20 plane
that Sununu usually uses. Because
of that cost, it has been estimated
Sununu’s trips have cost taxpayers
more than $500,000.
Documents rieased by the White
House showed Sununu had taken
77 trips on military planes from the
= sprin^of 1989 until last weekend.
* ~~r■Sununu said most of his travel,
including visits to Colorado ski
r resorts and repeated visits to his
home slate of New Hampshire, were
official business.
Asked if Sununu had gotten a
bum rap in extensive reports on his
personal and political, as well as
official, travel aboard military jets,
Bush said:
“I’m not saying what the rap is.
But as one who’s vowed to slay
above even the appearance of
impropriety,perhaps it is appropri
ate to review the policy.
“If that policy leads to a percep
tion problem, then I’ll take a look
at it. Thal’sexaeily what I’m going
to do is get Boyden Gray and oth
ers to take a look,” he said referring
to White House legal counsel Gray.
“I’ll take a look at that... in
light of practice and see whether it
should be altered in any way.”
It was Bush’s first public com
ment on the flap surrounding
Sununu’s tripsaboard military jets.
The president spoke a day after
the White House released, at the
request of reporters, records show
ing that Sununu and his family
have used government planes for a
variety of official and political trips,
and four categorized as personal.
The official White House posi
tion has been that Sununu did noth
ing wrong.
Bush’s spokesman, Marlin
Fitzwater, told reporters earlier
Wednesday that he knew of no
review of the travel policy under
way.
“I don’t want to register any
judgments or interpretations on the
matter,” Fitzwater said. “The pol
icy was there, it was complied with
and the president has full confi
dence in Gov. Sununu and every
body is on the job.”
“Anybody with a warm person
ality like I have has to go through
these in life,” Sununu told report
ers during a brief exchange in the
Oval Office.
The often combative chief of
staff mugged for reporters, tugging
his cheeks into a fake smile. He has
refused to comment directly about
the trips.
Sununu’s travel documents listed
24 trips for political business, 49
for official business and four for
personal reasons.
In the latest White House inter
pretation of the travel policy, Fitzwa
ter said Sununu was required to use
military aircraft for all his trips.
Earlier, he had said that such travel
was merely authorized.
Gorbachev remains leaoer
Hard-liners defeated
MOSCOW - President Mikhail
Gorbachev on Wednesday quashed
an attempt by hard-line Communists
to oust him as party leader, claiming
his departure would create an “explo
sive power vacuum” and lead to dic
tatorship.
Strengthened by a last-minute
agreement by leaders of nine Soviet
republics to back his economic “anti
crisis” plan, Gorbachev outmaneu
vered his critics at a closed meeting
of the party’s 410-member Central
Committee.
In the process, he again demon
strated the political skills that brought
him from a minor post in the prov
inces to the top of the party and have
allowed him to survive six years of
turbulent reforms.
The agreement with the republics
was reached late Tuesday after the
republic’s leaders were reportedly
brought to Gorbachev’s dacha, or
country home, in southwestern
Moscow.
Gorbachev’s concessions to the
reformist leaders gave him the back
ing to thwart the hard-liners.
Among those at the meeting was
Gorbachev’s chief political rival,
Russian Federation President Boris
Yeltsin, whose supporters have staged
recent rallies demanding Gorbachev’s
ouster.
The hard-line regional party bosses
and other powerful Communists who
gathered in the Kremlin tried to force
Gorbachev to give an account of his
handling of the embattled party and
crumbling economy. That would have
opened the way for stinging criticism
and a move to force Gorbachev to
step down as party leader.
In recent weeks, some hard-liners
have demanded separating Gor
bachev’s dual posts of general secre
tary of the 18 million-member Com
munist Party and president of the
country.
Also, Gorbachev has faced resig
nation calls from reformists who be
lieve he has betrayed his original
democratic vision.
The effort to make Gorbachev give
an account of his government was /
defeated by a show of hands, with the
overwhelming majority supporting
Gorbachev, Central Committee
member and historian Roy Medve
dev said in an interview with The
Associated Press.
The official news agency Tass said
before the meeting began that Gor
bachev was “under attack by the party
apparatus, the so-called conservative
forces, which are seeking revenge for
the perestroika (reforms) that he started
in 1985.”
Because the Central Committee
meeting was closed, details of Gor
bachev’s maneuvering were unknown.
But his main thrusts were clear:
He brandished the agreement with
republic leaders as evidence that he
was taking resolute steps to halt the
country’s economic collapse, and
painted a dire picture of the power
struggle that would occur if he stepped
do wi«.
Victim s character testimony backed
• WASHINGTON - Attorney Gen
eral Dick Thornburgh urged the Su
preme Court Wednesday to allow juries
•weighing the death penalty in murder
jcases to consider the victim’s charac
ter and hear about the suffering of
■survirors.
Thornburgh, appearing as a “friend
of the court” in a Tennessee capital
murder case, urged the justices to
overrule two recent high court deci
sions that bar evidence about the
victim's character in death-penalty
casts.
The attorney for death-row inmate
Pervis Tyrone Payne argued that
prosecutors inflamed the jury by
suggesting that a young boy who
survived the killing of his mother and
sister would have favored execution.
“The prosecution demanded that
the jury impose the death penally in
order to satisfy the anticipated desires
of young Nicholas Christopher for
Payne’s execution,” attorney Brooke
L^aihrain argued.
The boy survived several wounds,
but his mother, Charisse Christopher,
and 2-year-old sister, Lacic Jo, were
stabbed to death by Payne in 1987.
Payne also contends that the jury
- 4i-—
My own sense is that defendants should not be
permitted to demean the value of the life already
taken.
Thornburgh
attorney general
was inflamed by testimony from the
boy’s grandmother that her grandson
frequently cried for his mother and
sister.
The high court is using the Ten
nessee case to determine whether it
should overrule decisions it issued in
1987 and 1989 that barred so-called
“victim-impact” testimony from sur
vivors or statements by prosecutors.
Both cases were decided before
Justice David Souter replaced Justice
William Brennan.
Thornburgh argued that consid
eration of such victim-impact evi
dence was not unconstitutional or
improper.
Evidence about the victim’s char
acter and suffering of surv ivors should
be allowed “to ensure not only that
the defendant is held morally respon
sible but to hold the defendant ac
I? -
countable for the full extent of the
harm caused,” the attorney general
said.
But Lathram argued that allowing
such testimony would invite defense
lawyers to bring out unfavorable evi
dence about the victim’s past The
sentencing proceeding would then
become a trial of the victim’s charac
ter rather than the defendant’s, Lathram
told the. high court.
Justice Sandra Day O’Connor asked
whether lifting the ban on victim
impact evidence would lead to court
room free-for-alls.
‘‘My own sense is that defendants
should not be permitted to demean
the value of the life already taken,”
the attorney general replied.
Thornburgh also said states could
allow prosecutors to introduce evi
dence of a victim’s good character
while barring a counterattack by the
defense.
Justice John Paul Stevens suggested
that would be a “one-way street” for
prosecutors, but Thornburgh argued
it wouldn’t violate the Constitution.
Both Thornburgh and Tennessee
Attorney General Charles Burson said
a survivor’s opinion of the sentence a
jury should impose should also be
admissible.
Justice Anthony Kennedy told
Lathram that “opinion testimony is a
troubling issue” but questioned whether
the boy wasn’t simply being cast by
prosecutors as “a surrogate for the
whole community."
“If that’s the only prejudicial thing
that happened, I am wondering if
there was any prejudice,” O’Connor
said.
Souter and Stevens both expressed
concern that by allowing juries to
assess the value of one life would
mean they could find some worth
more than others.
Burson argued that while all life is
sacred, the murder of a president
“would have much greater societal
harm than the taking of the life of a
homeless person.”
Nebraskan
Editor Eric Planner
472- 1766
Managing Editor Victoria Ayott*
Assoc News Editors Jana Pedersen
Emily Roeenbaum
Editorial Page Editor Bob Nelaon
Wire Editor Jennifer O'CHka
Copy Desk Editor Diane Braylon
Sports Editor Paul Domeler
Arts A Entertain
ment Editor Julie Naughton
Diversions Editor Connie Sheehan
Photo Chief William Lauer
Night News Editors Pat Dtnelage
Kara Wells
Cindy Woetrei
Art Director Brian Shelllto
General Manager Dan Shaft I i
Production Manager Katharine Pollcky
Advertising Manager Loren Melrose
Sales Manager Todd Sears
Publications Board
Chairman Bill Vo be)da
436-9993
Professional Adviser Don Walton
473- 7301
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_1991 DAILY NEBRASKAN