Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, March 23, 1990 TAG: 9003232819
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A1 EDITION: EVENING
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: ANCHORAGE, ALASKA LENGTH: Medium
His lawyer, Michael Chalos, said he will start negotiating with Exxon to regain the skipper's job with the shipping company that hired him out of college and fired him after his tanker ran aground a year ago, causing the nation's worst oil spill.
"I'd like to go back to the sea. That's what I do," Hazelwood said Thursday after jurors absolved him of accusations he was reckless and drunk during the disaster that blackened the rocky shoreline of Prince William Sound.
The misdemeanor charge of negligent discharge of oil on which Hazelwood was convicted carries a maximum sentence of 90 days in jail and a $1,000 fine, far less than the 7\ years and $61,000 fine he could have faced if found guilty on all four charges.
A grand jury indicted him last year on a felony, criminal mischief, and two other misdemeanors, reckless endangerment and operating a vessel while intoxicated. Jurors took only 10 1/2 hours in deliberations to reject those counts.
"The state just didn't have the evidence," said juror Terrill Smith, a hardware store manager.
Alaska Gov. Steve Cowper told a news conference that Hazelwood's acquittal on the most serious charges shows that someone other than the veteran mariner was responsible for the grounding.
Alaska Attorney General Douglas Baily disputed suggestions that the state had tried to make Hazelwood a scapegoat.
"It was always my view that the captain of that vessel is ultimately responsible," he said.
The normally taciturn Hazelwood smiled broadly for the first time in the two-month trial when the verdicts were announced two days short of the oil spill's first anniversary.
"I'm not used to being in the limelight," Hazelwood told reporters. "I was a pretty anonymous character until a year ago."
Chalos said he would fight expected efforts by the Coast Guard to revoke Hazelwood's master's license.
His future also is clouded by more than 100 civil lawsuits filed by assorted victims of the nation's worst environmental disaster.
Jim Morakis, an Exxon spokesman in New York, said the company, which has fired Hazelwood, was "pleased that the ordeal of the trial is over for Captain Hazelwood and his family."
"The verdict would seem to confirm the view that the grounding of the Exxon Valdez was an accident," Morakis said. "In light of pending litigation any other comment would be inappropriate."
Another lawyer for Hazelwood, Dick Madson, said even the misdemeanor was wrongly filed and would be appealed.
The heart of the case against Hazelwood was alcohol, and jurors said the state failed to prove he was drunk.
Juror Jeff Sage, a grocery store manager, said the panel didn't buy a prosecution expert's backward calculations that tried proving intoxication without physical evidence. A blood test was taken too late to be conclusive.
"The jury felt there were just too many variables to pinpoint whether he was drunk at all," Sage said.
Assistant District Attorney Brent Cole conceded his prosecution would have been easier if a timely blood test had been taken. He said he hoped the case had discouraged tanker captains from drinking before they sail.
The Exxon Valdez, a 987-foot tanker, ran aground and spilled almost 11 million gallons of oil into Prince William Sound on March 24, 1989. It killed countless birds, fish and wildlife in the scenic area, and Exxon came under bitter criticism for failing to respond quickly with a cleanup effort.
Sage said jurors concluded that Hazelwood was negligent to leave the bridge of his ship during an icy transit. But he also said they thought "all his orders were prudent. He was in command."
"To this day, we're never going to know exactly what caused the accident," Sage said.
But he found no fault with the state's decision to put the skipper on trial.
"I think that someone had to be tried," he said, "and he's the captain. He was in charge."
by CNB