Original Sixteen-to-One
Sierra hard rock gold miners
vow vengance on 'vigilantes'
DOWNIEVILLE (2/13/03) -- A judge Thursday set aside indictments charging a hard rock gold mine and two of its top officials with manslaughter in a miner's accidental death three years ago.
The ruling cleared the Original Sixteen-to-One Mine, its president, Michael M. Miller, 60, and mine manager Jonathon T. Farrell, 32, of any wrong-doing in the November, 2000 death of Mark Fussell.
Spectators cheered and clapped as visiting Judge Stanley Young announced his decision in the emotionally-charged case.
"Thank you, thank you, thank you," Rachel Farrell, mother of one defendant, shouted.
Miller said he might file damage claims against prosecutors from the California District Attorneys Association for allegedly acting improperly in the case.
"It's not vindication, because we didn't do anything wrong to begin with," Miller said of the ruling. "But the defense is over, and now we go on the offense," he added.
The cloud the criminal prosecution put over the mine and its investors has resulted in millions of dollars in financial losses, Miller contended.
Fussell was crushed between a protruding ore and a moving railway tram while reopening an unfamiliar "drift" -- or tunnel -- for gold exploration.
Safety investigators later cited the mining company for not having marked the chute hazard with a flag or reflector.
The matter remained with state and federal mining safety agencies until attorneys with a CDAA's special prosecutions unit intervened.
"They were like vigilantes," Miller said.
For several years the CDAA has provided attorneys with special legal training to help rural district attorney's in complex trials.
The CDAA took the matter to a Sierra County grand jury last year and obtained indictments against the two men and the mine.
Miller responded by filing a motion to set aside the indictment, alleging the CDAA lawyers -- who by then had been deputized by the county district attorney -- had not disclosed tot he grand jurors evidence that pointed to the defendants' innocence.
State Occupational Safety and Health Administrator inspectors had okayed safety conditions at the mind a few months before and another inspector had examined the accident tunnel only few days prior to the accident and seen no hazards, reports indicated.
After the accident, a federal investigator issued a citation saying the chute involved protruded to far into tunnel and issued a citation.
In presenting evidence to the grand jury, the prosecutors erred by revealing the report that incriminated the mine, while essentially hiding the report pointing to the mine's innocence form the jury, defense attorney Thomas Crary argued.
"I'm astounded at what went on here," said Thomas Crary, a former prosecutor representing the mine in the case.
District Attorney Lawrence Allen defended the CDAA attorneys, saying the first report was not legal evidence and amount to no more than hearsay, but conceded the grand jury probably should have been told of the second exculpatory report.
Allen said he believed the CDAA attorneys acted properly and that he was still trying to decide whether to continue pressing the criminal charges, or not.
"I could cure the evidence problem and take it back to the grand jury, or I could just refile the charges on my own," Allen said.
He declined to say when he might make a final decision.
Officials at the CDAA id not return phone calls.
Fussell's family has not filed civil lawsuits in connection with the death, Jonathon Farrell said, who was a long and close friend to Fussell.
"They know what happened. They know it was an accident. They know he died working at what he loved to do," Farrell said.
-Tom Nadeau, Sacramento Bee