One law for us, another law for them

On Wednesday night at 11:08, Troy Anthony Davis was executed in the State of Georgia for the 1989 murder of a police officer. Much doubt existed in the case as seven of the nine witnesses recanted their testimony (one even claimed that an eighth murder witness was guilty) and no DNA or other physical evidence linked Davis to the crime. Former FBI director William Sessions wrote, "The evidence in this case-consisting almost entirely of conflicting stories, testimonies and statements is inadequate to the task of convincingly establishing either Davis' guilt or his innocence." Davis maintained his innocence up until his death, telling the family of the murdered police officer, "I was not the one who took the life of your father, son, brother."

Sadly, in the USA, the death penalty issue can be a popular vote winner. Many point to the dissolute nature of the death penalty, to how it degenerates civilised society. It is all of this indeed, but, morality aside, state execution has always been racist and class-biased in the US. The death penalty rarely targets the rich and never the company directors knowingly responsible for corporate manslaughter.

Last year on April 5, 29 miners died in a methane explosion caused by poor ventilation at the Upper Big Branch Mine in Raleigh County, W.Va. A report by the Mine Safety and Health Administration ruled that the event that caused the explosion could have easily been prevented by Massey Energy, which was well aware of a long history of safety problems in the mine. In the year leading up to the explosion, the Upper Big Branch Mine was cited 458 times for safety violations, with 50 of those violations being willful violations of the law-nearly five times the national average for citations of a single mine. An investigation by the Mine Safety and Health Administration also revealed that Massey kept two sets of books-it recorded a clean safety record in one log book, which it provided to mine inspectors, while maintaining a private, internal log of known safety problems and the efforts made to fix them. Despite this evidence of the willful violation of safety laws that could have prevented the miners' deaths at Upper Big Branch, and despite evidence of widespread lying to federal investigators by Massey officials, CEO Don Blankenship is a free man allowed to enjoy the splendorous life of a multi-millionaire. Only two Massey Energy officials, one foreman and one former chief of security, have so far been indicted -- not for their responsibility in the deaths, but for lying and concealing documents from federal investigators. Another 18 executives, including longtime Massey Energy CEO Don Blankenship, refused to be interviewed by federal investigators, pleading the Fifth Amendment as protection from self-incrimination. Even if company officials like Blankenship are prosecuted, it is unlikely that any will do jail time.

Since 1970 more than 360,000 workers have died on the job in safety accidents, while only 84 cases have been prosecuted for the willful violation of safety rules that resulted in a worker's death. Even if convicted, the penalty for wrongfully killing a worker on the job is only 6 months. Quite often company officials are not jailed, but merely fined if found responsible for willfully violating safety laws that lead to a worker's death. The maximum penalty for a major safety violation is a mere $7,000 -- a price many companies are willing to pay for the death of a worker on the job. In 2010 alone, 4,547 Americans were killed on the job.

Power and influence have clearly distorted the scales of the justice system when men like Troy Davis are executed in the face of questionable evidence of their guilt, while corporate CEOs like Don Blankenship, who evidence shows clearly and willfully disobeyed safety laws that caused the deaths of 29 workers, are allowed to go about sailing on their yachts.
From here

In 2004 the International Labour Organisation estimated the number of deaths of workers worldwide, through health and safety causes, to be two million per year. Those figures on a daily basis are that around 6,000 workers are dying from employment based disease and accidents, more than are caused through wars. This is the equivalent of one worker dying every 15 seconds from employment related causes.
There exists a cultural view of death at work as an "accident", which is the automatic presupposition of investigating authorities, a presupposition that downgrades the severity of the occurrence. Both police and juries are likely to react lightly towards the respectable management, who do not fit with their pre-conceptions of criminals, and so are less inclined to use their powers of discretion to pursue those cases, unless-as in one gruesome case with a cutting machine that is cited-the details are so gross as to fit with the traditional horrific and violent concepts of murder. The result of the practice over corporate killing is to avoid too serious a deterrent to the risk-taking that is part of competitive industry. Capitalists must remain flexible enough to take risks that may brings greater rewards in the interest of profit. This competitive aspect of capitalism also nullifies any real prospect of solving the problem through the law. Global competition between regulators undermines effective control over working conditions. Capital views safety as simply another cost to business. In many cases the cost of paying law suits was cheaper than actually correcting a fault in their product. Despite the fact that it is exactly the constant baying of the shareholders for profit that is the root cause in the system, they are not, and never will be, in any way held personally responsible under the law.

SOYMB would dearly welcome the abolition of the death penalty. Yes, we loathe the death penalty, as much as we detest every other injustice perpetrated against our class, but we locate the problem in a class war that is waged daily against us. Our duty is to respond by urging our class to end capitalism and, in so doing, finally eliminating all the social problems that
presently plague us; forever changing society.

In the capitalist system safety is not top priority. What stops a company from ceasing trading — a poor health and safety record, or simple lack of profit? The unavoidable fact about capitalism is that profit ultimately dictates. In the UK the Health and Safety Executive has little bark and few teeth and divorce from the overriding motive for capitalist production is impossible.

A sane society will not need to rely on governments, companies or authorities to enforce safety. Socialism will rip the price tags from everything and liberate the productive potential of the world.