12/21/24
June 15, 2005
Sentence handed down in Cavagnoud death. : After three and a half years and a fair amount of finger-pointing, a French team coach and a course official were fined and given three-month suspended sentences by a French court for their roles in the the death of Regine Cavagnoud, a member of the French ski team. Cavagnoud died in 2001 following an accident during a preseason downhill training run in which she collided with German coach Markus Anwander. At the time of her death, Cavagnoud was the most successful and most promising racer on the French women's team.
posted by lil_brown_bat to other at 09:36 PM - 10 comments
chris2sy, the Austrians have conducted an investigation too and I believe there is possible legal action pending in Austria. I am pretty sure that under US law, US citizens can be held liable for at least some crimes committed abroad -- I believe there are laws allowing US courts to persecute sex crimes against children committed abroad, for example. As for the finding by the French court, I confess that I have no idea about the standards of guilt in French law or how they'd compare to US law, x degree murder, voluntary manslaughter, involuntary manslaughter, etc. It was indeed a very low level of criminal intent, i.e., none at all -- it was Regine Cavagnoud's coach who was convicted, after all, and clearly getting his racer killed was not his intent. But it was a very serious screwup that directly caused one death and nearly caused another. I think that many people felt that there had to be some kind of hit for this, to strongly discourage the kind of carelessness that led to this tragedy.
posted by lil_brown_bat at 01:03 PM on June 16, 2005
True, lbb, but this doesn't seem to be similar in any way to the kinds of crimes that can be prosecuted in US courts. There needs to be some connection to America, such as an American traveling abroad to engage in the kind of conduct you mention or foreigners conspiring to commit terrorist acts against Americans. A training accident, with no premeditation, doesn't seem to fit. Europe has different laws but I'd still be curious to see the rationale if you can find it.
posted by billsaysthis at 03:07 PM on June 16, 2005
This older article about it made it even less clear for me about the whole thing. I guess it was half of a trial anyway: The lawyers for the defendants asked that their clients be acquitted, claiming that there was "grave negligence" on the German side. The Germans were absent from the trial. They were acquitted of any wrongdoing by the Austrians. It sounds like the Germans and Austrians blamed Fournier and Fine as well.
posted by chris2sy at 03:47 PM on June 16, 2005
billsaysthis: True, lbb, but this doesn't seem to be similar in any way to the kinds of crimes that can be prosecuted in US courts. There needs to be some connection to America, Actually, there doesn't. As a f'rinstance, about five years ago there was a suit brought in NY against Rodovan Karadzic by a group of Bosnian Muslims: plaintiffs not American, defendent not American, crime not committed in the US. But I digress. A training accident, with no premeditation, doesn't seem to fit. Europe has different laws but I'd still be curious to see the rationale if you can find it. My French isn't that good, unfortunately; I couldn't even begin to tackle interpreting the relevant French legal codes, even if I could track them down (but I can ask for directions to the train station). I don't think it's necessarily all that radically different from what might happen in the US, however. I dunno of any cases of criminal prosecution, but I wouldn't be at all surprised to find that there have been civil suits brought in US courts against, say, US outfitters who have had US clients die while on some kind of adventure-travel jaunt overseas. The whole "training accident" thing aroused a lot of passion at the time, too, and justly so. It was an accident, but it was the sort of "friendly fire" accident that really enrages people. Deaths in downhill racing are rare -- there have been a total of two deaths on the World Cup -- but the fact is that if you hit something solid at those speeds, you're unlikely to survive the experience. That being the case, downhill racers and their fans are very intolerant of anything that threatens the integrity of a closed course. From the moment of the accident, it was clear that Anwander never should have been where he was, and someone was gonna hang for it, at least symbolically.
posted by lil_brown_bat at 07:28 AM on June 17, 2005
lbb, you're conflating civil and criminal--American law does allow such as you've mentioned but only for money damages and there still needs to be some connection to the USA (though I can't recall exactly what)--and I would bet pretty good money that this French case, had the unfortunate skiier been American, could not have been brought in our courts.
posted by billsaysthis at 04:18 PM on June 17, 2005
lbb, you're conflating civil and criminal Well, no, I'm talking about US law and French law. In US law, there's civil and there's criminal. I have no idea what distinctions there may be in French law, but one should not assume that identical structures exist in both systems. As for the case not being able to be brought in US courts if the skier was American, again, I have no idea if that is so...but the skier wasn't American and the case was brought. chris2sy commented that the case seemed "very strange"; I'm saying that there's not anything strange about it, if that's the way French law works.
posted by lil_brown_bat at 09:05 PM on June 17, 2005
No, I meant your example of an extraterritorial American case was conflating them; I'm only commenting on the possibility of a similar case here. As you said, I don't know French law which is why I said previously I'd be curious to hear from someone who does.
posted by billsaysthis at 01:09 AM on June 18, 2005
Separation of civil and penal does not exist in the same manner in France. Regine's parents would have logged a complaint for wrongful death (regardless of civil or penal). Then a special judge would have gathered facts prior to trial; on the face of these facts and based on laws the prosecutor decides what kind of sentence he is going to seek. A single judgment of guilty or not guilty will be passed and penalty will be determined to include both penal (jail and fines) and civil compensation (called "dommages et interets"). As far as I know, you can't get civil penalties unless you have broken the law in some (even minor) way so there would be penal penalties as well. In this case unvoluntary manslaughter was the judgment, and the penal penalties were handed - civil penalties typically are determined by experts afterwards.
posted by ergos at 06:31 PM on June 20, 2005
Thanks for the informed comment, ergos, but what about the extraterritoriality here? Nothing happened on French soil after all.
posted by billsaysthis at 10:41 PM on June 20, 2005
She was killed (or fatally injured, however you would phrase it) in Austria and prosecuted in France? Did the Austrians carry out the investigation? That seems very strange. Not only that but I don't think there would necessarily be criminal liability/culpability in the U.S. for something like that if it would have happened here. Its possible that there would be, but more likely that a civil suit, for wrongful death, etc., would be the end result. Especially since it says in the earlier article: "German and French ski officials said Tuesday the accident was caused by communication problems between their teams, both of which were practicing on the glacier." It just seems like a pretty low level of criminal intent, like at the "ordinary" negligence level. A tragic and preventable fatal accident for sure.