## Facts

- The United States prosecuted W.R. Grace & Co. and several executives/employees for offenses tied to asbestos-contaminated vermiculite operations near Libby, Montana.
- The superseding indictment included conspiracy (including Clean Air Act and fraud objects), Clean Air Act knowing endangerment, wire fraud, and obstruction of justice.
- Before trial, the court granted the defendants’ motion under Federal Rule of Evidence 615 to exclude lay witnesses from the courtroom during testimony.
- The government asserted that certain prospective witnesses, including Melvin and Lerah Parker, were “crime victims” under the Crime Victims’ Rights Act (CVRA), entitling them to attend public proceedings.
- The indictment alleged the knowing-endangerment counts involved releases of hazardous pollutants into the ambient air creating an imminent danger of death or serious bodily harm, and it also referenced the Parkers in connection with contaminated property.
- The dispute concerned whether the Parkers and similar witnesses qualified as CVRA “crime victims” of the charged knowing-endangerment offenses such that they could remain in court despite the Rule 615 sequestration order.

## Issues

1. Who qualifies as a “crime victim” under 18 U.S.C. § 3771(e) in this prosecution.
2. Whether § 3771(a)(3)’s victim right not to be excluded from public proceedings limits or displaces the court’s authority to sequester witnesses under Federal Rule of Evidence 615.
3. Whether the Parkers’ alleged harms connected to contaminated property made them “crime victims” of the charged Clean Air Act knowing-endangerment counts as pleaded.

## Decision

- The court held that CVRA victim status is not established solely by the government’s characterization or by identification in an indictment.
- Applying the CVRA definition, the court concluded the Parkers and similarly situated witnesses were not “crime victims” of the knowing-endangerment offenses as charged.
- Because they did not qualify as CVRA victims for the relevant offenses, they had no statutory right to remain in the courtroom.
- The court maintained its Rule 615 exclusion order as to those witnesses.

## Legal Principles

- Under the CVRA, a “crime victim” is a person “directly and proximately harmed as a result of the commission of a Federal offense,” requiring a close causal link between the charged offense and the claimed harm.
- Victim status under 18 U.S.C. § 3771 is a legal determination for the court based on the statutory definition and the charged offenses, not a designation controlled by the prosecution.
- The CVRA’s attendance right in § 3771(a)(3) applies only after a person meets the statutory definition of “crime victim”; absent that showing, Rule 615 sequestration remains available.
- When an offense is charged as creation of “imminent danger” from ambient-air releases, persons alleging different forms of harm (such as property-contamination injuries) are not automatically victims of that offense without direct and proximate harm from the offense as pleaded.

## Conclusion

The court refused to treat certain government witnesses as CVRA “crime victims” for the charged knowing-endangerment counts and therefore enforced the pretrial Rule 615 sequestration order, limiting victim-attendance rights to persons directly and proximately harmed by the specific federal offenses charged.


United States v. W.R. Grace, 597 F. Supp. 2d 1157 (D. Mont. 2009)