This one cheeses me off, Good 'N Plenty. Although in a plea-bargain deal with prosecutors, Martin Pang agreed to a 35-year sentence for manslaughter in the 1995 deaths of four Seattle firefighters battling an arson blaze he set in his parents' International District warehouse, Pang's attorney now claims his sentence should be cut to time served because it was exceptionally harsh, and the four deaths should count as just one.
The notorious Seattle defense attorney John Henry Browne, according to The Seattle Times, is:
...seeking to vacate Pang's 35-year prison sentence for four counts of first-degree manslaughter and instead have Pang's prison term reduced to time already served.....Four Seattle firefighters died in January 1995, when a floor in this Chinatown International District warehouse collapsed on them. Martin Pang, who set the fire in the building owned by his parents, was convicted of four counts of manslaughter.
In his motion, Browne says Pang's 35-year sentence is unconstitutional in light of a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling that makes it illegal for a judge, without the help of a jury, to impose an exceptionally long sentence. That so-called Blakely decision was issued in 2004 in response to a Washington state kidnapping case.
The Supreme Court essentially said that prosecutors have to prove to a jury that a crime warrants an exceptionally harsh sentence. Browne said the standard sentencing range for each count of manslaughter should have been 8-½ years, with the sentences all served at the same time. The trial court judge who sentenced Pang in 1998, however, gave him four sentences of about 8-½ years each, to be served one after the other for a total of 35 years.
Right, Mr. Browne. A plea bargain was struck. Now, the last three deaths on Pang's hands are free if you win. It's a good thing defense attorneys exist. But you bring discredit to your profession, sir.
Actions have consequences. and a deal is a deal. For serious and heinous crimes such as Pang's, where multiple deaths result; consecutive, not concurrent sentences are the only appropriate legal and moral remedy.
The Perpetrators Rights parade is just getting started.
That said, I never understood quite why Pang originally faced the death penalty. Don't you have to have intent to kill to get the death penalty? He clearly didn't have that. Don't get me wrong, he deserved to be punished, but why was the death penalty part of the deal?
Anyhow, whatever. I hope the families of the victims are at peace about whatever happens.
Posted by: Cliff on February 17, 2005 07:22 PMThere is also a legal principle called the professional rescuer doctrine that would come into play. In other words, firefighters are presumed to know the dangers of their occupations and are expected to exercise the caution that a trained profession ought to exercise. Based on this principle and the fact that the families sued the city for negligence; and the department was investigated and fined for safety violations is further evidence that a portion, if not a majority, of the fault for the deaths of the firefighters is with the department and the city.
I don't know if Browne used the professional rescuer doctrine as part of Pang's defense. If he didn't, he should have. If he had, Pang may have been convicted of only arson.
Sure, Pang set the fire, but he had no reason to believe that firefighters would die in it.
Don't blame Browne for doing his job. If the fire department had done theirs with proper training, it is likely that all four of those men would be alive today.
Posted by: Don on February 18, 2005 01:18 AMThere is some high moral ground for you!
Any death that occurs as the result of criminal activity is murder. A getaway driver is just as guilty of murder as the robber in the bank who kills a teller.
alaric
Posted by: alaric on February 18, 2005 07:05 AMThe law in the state of Washington is not quite so clear. If the driver of the getaway car only agreed to rob the bank without killing anyone, the driver would not be guilty of murder. The law in some other states is different are as you state, but not in Washington.
Posted by: Don on February 18, 2005 08:34 AMI know, let's be nice to Pang and his like and they will learn that they should not do bad things.
Maybe we could all pool our resources and pay to send him on a retreat to the Bahamas or Hawaii so he can get his act together and be a good citizen.
Get a clue Cliff. If I was a family member of one of the firefighter's, I would be waiting around the corner, but not to be nice to Pang. There can be no peace for anyone in this injustice, family or not. I sincerely hope that Pang gets what's coming to him. Unfortunatly it will likely not come through our "Justice" system.
Disgusting.
Posted by: Amazed by the insanity on February 18, 2005 10:22 AMThat is why the law tacks a first degree murder charge to ANY death in an arson fire. The total disregard of an arsonist to the possiblity that someone may be killed in a set fire. How about a defense like "Yea, I shot him in the chest, but I really wasn't aiming for his heart and I didn't think that 357mag would have a chance of killing him." Make sense? Not to me.
"If the fire department had done theirs (their job) with proper training, it is likely that all four of those men would be alive today."
Yes, the SFD has had trouble with training in the past. But I don't believe any so called training issue would have made a difference. Firefights are trained to go inside and get to the seat of the fire. You can throw thousands of gallons of water per minute on a large building, but generally you don't get to the seat of the fire until there is a collapse somewhere. Firefighters use the defensive mode when a building is considered unsafe to enter.
The Pang warehouse was a heavy timber building and SHOULD have stood up to hours of burning. What was unknown to the firefighters was that an addition years ago (and legal at that time) used a 2 by 4 "pony wall", about 4 feet high on top of an existing wall to level the building so an additional story could be built. It was this wall that failed and caused the collapse. A 2 by 4 will burn through in about an hour. I believe the collapse was about 40 minutes into the fire, just the right time for that pony wall to lose it's structual integrity. Training would not have prevented that, nor would training have prevented Martin Pang from setting that fire. The facts are that Mr Pang set a fire in a sub basement or basement using flammable liquids and that is the primary cause of the disaster.
It is also absoluting amazing that Martin Pang manage to run and hide in a country that has an extridition treaty with the US, that forbids extridition of an accused person if there is a death penalty involved. Where would he have gotten that info. Coincidence?
That being said, I'm not sure there is much here to worry about. First, Mr. Pang agreed to the sentence. There was no jury to determine any facts, and since Mr. Pang agreed, I think the sentence should be upheld.
But, if the plea agreement is thrown out, it is the whole agreement that is thrown out, not just the sentence. In which case, Mr. Pang gets retried for felony murder. This would not be that hard of a trial to have, there is still plenty of evidence and witnesses. They cannot go for the death penalty because of the extradition agreement, but I have no problems with Mr. Pang being retried and sentenced to life in prision at Walla Walla.
But don't blame the lawyer for doing his job. Everyone has a right to challange their conviction. However, as I said, I don't think in this case he is doing his client any favors.
Posted by: JDB on February 18, 2005 11:35 AMThankyou for your posts, I am deeply touched that you all have expressed your opinions and concern here, I was just doing a google search and happend to run into this message board. The support our families have had throughout the last 10 years has been amazing...
Posted by: A family member.... on March 3, 2005 08:50 PM