On Monday, federal prosecutors announced that they were seeking a maximum sentence for former Massey Energy CEO Donald Blankenship, who was found guilty of conspiracy back in December.
Considering what Blankenship is guilty of doing -- breaking safety laws that could have saved the lives of 29 men who died at an explosion in one of his West Virginia mines -- you’d think that his means he’ll likely spend the rest of his life in the big house for the death of those 29 men.
Well, think again.
Despite having the blood of almost 30 men on his hands, Blankenship will only spend at maximum one year in prison.
This is the punishment federal prosecutors are now asking for, and even they think it doesn’t go far enough in taking into account the scale of his crimes.
In his
court-filing demanding that Blankenship get the maximum one-year sentence, U.S. Attorney Steve Ruby said that, “Under any fair assessment, only a sentence of many years in prison could truly reflect the seriousness of [the[ Defendant’s crime and provide just punishment, which the law requires the court to do….A year is woefully insufficient… but under the law on the books, it is the best the court can do.”
So Donald Blankenship kills 29 men and only goes to prison for a year while the kid down the street sells a few joints and gets locked up for twenty years.
Such is life in the American criminal justice system, where the rich and powerful literally get away with murder and the poor and oppressed get the shaft and then some.
This kind of situation is, theoretically at least, what the much-vaunted bipartisan criminal justice reform effort in Congress is meant to stop.
It’s supposed to the bridge towards a fairer future.
But now the Koch brothers are trying to hijack it.
