After years of cost-cutting, lobbying and mismanagement, Boeing finally sent hundreds of passengers to their deaths in 737 MAX jets that were hard to fly without training the pilots didn't receive. A federal judge yesterday rejected a plea deal offered to executives by prosecutors. Why? Because of a reference to diversity, reports Reuters.
A U.S. judge on Thursday rejected Boeing's agreement to plead guilty to fraud in the wake of two fatal 737 MAX crashes, faulting a diversity and inclusion provision in the deal. U.S. District Judge Reed O'Connor in Fort Worth, Texas, who has a record of ruling in favor of conservative causes, seized on a single sentence in the plea agreement mentioning the DOJ's diversity policy regarding the selection of an independent monitor to audit the planemaker's compliance practices. He had asked both Boeing and prosecutors to further brief him on it in October.
Quite a stopped clock we have there! A judge passing on a sweetheart deal for corporate executives not because of America's culture of elite impunity but because a DEI reference triggered his politics. I like this dry line from the reporter: "Judges weighing plea deals typically do not upend them over issues that the parties to the agreement have not disputed."
Paul Cassell, a lawyer representing the victims, hopes for the best: "Judge O'Connor has recognized that this was a cozy deal between" the government and Boeing "that failed to focus on the overriding concerns: holding Boeing accountable for its deadly crime and ensuring that nothing like this happens again in the future."
