FINE POINTS, NOT FIREWORKS: SPILL TRIAL BEGINS
HAZELWOOD'S ATTORNEYS FAIL TO GET CHARGES DISMISSED

By DON HUNTER
Daily News reporter

ANCHORAGE- The Joe Hazelwood spectacle debuted in Anchorage Superior Court Monday, replete with bright lights, a media pack and a local courthouse innovation: badges to distinguish reporters from real people.

Hazelwood is the best known mariner in recent Alaska history. His trial on charges of operating a 987 foot oil tanker recklessly and under the influence of alcohol has drawn nearly as many journalists to town as the oil spilled from the Exxon Valdez brought last spring.

Pushing through a knot of television cameras in the courthouse lobby Monday morning, Hazelwood looked as if he'd just as soon be on deck in a typhoon. He seemed more relaxed in the courtroom, chatting with his attorneys.

Hazelwood is charged with one felony and three misdemeanors for his role in running the Valdez aground on Bligh Reef. The ruptured tanker dumped nearly 11 million gallons of crude oil that floated free over thousands of square miles of Prince William Sound, smearing shores hundreds of miles away and killing thousands of seabirds and marine mammals. Company officials say Exxon has spent about $2 billion on a still incomplete cleanup attempt.

Commercial fishermen, processors, the state and environmental groups filed more than 100 lawsuits against Exxon and Alyeska Pipeline Service Co., but the 43 year old Hazelwood is the only person criminally charged. If convicted, he could be jailed for seven years and fined more than $60,000.

His trial is expected to last eight weeks, maybe longer. Defense attorneys and prosecutors start sifting through a pool of about 100 potential jurors today. Judge Karl Johnstone said he expects to spend at least a week sitting a jury and three or four alternates.

Media relations and arguments on the sort of fine legal points appreciated mostly by lawyers dominated the first day of the trial:

* Defense attorneys Michael Chalos and Dick Madson lost on a motion to dismiss the charges against Hazelwood, but they hadn't expected to win anyway. They argued that state courts don't have jurisdiction over Hazelwood's conduct on the Exxon Valdez because the authors of the U.S. Constitution reserved regulation of interstate commerce for the federal government. The state is free to regulate recreational boating, Madson said, but not commercial shipping.

"I don't think the state can argue that the Exxon Valdez was some kind of recreational Love Boat," Madson said.

The analogy didn't help. Johnstone, who had rejected a similar motion last year, denied this one, too.

* Johnstone plans to pare the long list of questions defense and prosecution attorneys proposed for jurors. The defense could lose 13 of its 70 questions, including inquiries about the receipt of permanent fund dividends, whether prospective jurors ever drank before driving, and if acquitting Hazelwood would embarrass the state. Prosecutors probably won't get to ask if jurors think the IRS, FBI or the state Revenue Department have treated them unfairly.

Jurors spent part of Monday filling out a three page questionnaire asking, among other things, if they have lived or worked around in Prince William Sound, if the oil spill affected them personally or financially, and if they've been the victim of an alcohol related accident.

* Johnstone issued press badges so jurors and witnesses will know when they're talking to reporters. He also set some guidelines for courthouse decorum, asking reporters not to disclose the names of jurors during the trial and ruling hallways out of bounds for interviews. Those who forget will be interrupted by security guards and asked to take their questions elsewhere, the judge said.

---

Story Index: Main | The Captain	Overall: story 178 of 380 The Captain story 31 of 56