Italian Court Sentences Seismologists to Jail

[Callisto]

I didn't see anything about this yet, but I saw this yesterday and it's pretty messed up: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/23/wo...-of-quake.html

ROME - Seven prominent Italian earthquake experts were convicted of manslaughter on Monday and sentenced to six years in prison for failing to give adequate warning to the residents of a seismically active area in the months preceding an earthquake that killed more than 300 people.

Speaking in a hushed courtroom in L'Aquila, the city whose historic center was gutted by the April 2009 earthquake, the judge, Marco Billi, read a long list of names of those who had died or been injured in the disaster before he handed down the sentences to six scientists and a former government official. The defendants, who said they would appeal the decision, will also have to pay court costs and damages of $10.2 million.

The seven, most of them seismologists and geologists, were members of the National Commission for the Forecast and Prevention of Major Risks, which met shortly before the quake struck - after weeks of frequent small tremors - but did not issue a safety warning.

The verdicts jolted the international scientific community, which feared they might open the way to an onslaught of legal actions against scientists who evaluate the risks of natural hazards. "This is the death of public service on the part of professors and professionals," said Luciano Maiani, the current president of the risks commission, according to the news agency Ansa. The legal and media pressure prompted by the trial have made it impossible to carry out professional consultancies for the state, he said, adding, "This doesn't happen anywhere else in the world."

Thomas H. Jordan, a professor at the University of Southern California, led a commission that after the disaster advised the Italian government about better ways to communicate earthquake risks to the public. He described the verdicts as incredible, "given that they have just convicted scientists for basically doing their job during a time of crisis."

"I'm afraid it's going to teach scientists to keep their mouths shut," he added.

Scientists said the case raised the issue of when a public warning is appropriate. While predicting the exact time and location of an earthquake is not possible, seismologists are increasingly able to forecast the likelihood that a quake might occur in a certain area within a certain time. But if the likelihood is very low - as it was in this case, despite the increased seismic activity in the weeks before - a warning may do more harm than good. Lawyers for the defendants were unanimous on Monday in their condemnation of the sentence, which exceeded the prosecution's request of four years in prison, and vowed to appeal.

"I wasn't expecting this," said Alfredo Biondi, a defense lawyer. He described the ruling as one of the most erroneous that he had encountered in his long career.

"This was a trial that should not have been held in L'Aquila" because the emotional impact of the quake is still felt so strongly in the city, said Filippo Dinacci, who represents two of the defendants.

More than three years after the earthquake, L'Aquila, in the Abruzzo region east of Rome, has yet to recover fully. Its architecturally rich center is still largely abandoned, and residents are still mourning the dead. There are some sporadic signs of reconstruction around the center, including the inauguration last month of an auditorium designed by Renzo Piano, but the overall mood in the city speaks more of discouragement and dismay.

The city and surrounding towns were felled by the magnitude 6.3 quake in the early hours of April 6, 2009. The disaster left thousands homeless and killed 309, many of them in their sleep.

Six days before the quake, the risks commission met to assess the situation after the period of frequent small quakes. The seismic activity had made the public anxious, as had a series of specific quake predictions - none of which proved to be accurate - by a local man who is not a scientist. After the meeting, some commission members gave encouraging statements to the news media, which prosecutors said gave residents an overly reassuring picture of the risks they faced. The commission, prosecutors charged, did not uphold its mandate and consequently did not allow residents to make informed decisions about whether to stay or leave their homes.

In his closing arguments on Monday the prosecutor, Fabio Picuti, cited a United States court ruling that blamed the Army Corps of Engineers for "monumental negligence" for some of the flooding from Hurricane Katrina, Ansa reported. That case, Mr. Picuti said, demonstrates that it is possible to fall short of preventing and predicting a risk, according to Ansa.

Relatives of the victims cheered the decision. "It's just a tiny bit of justice so that it doesn't happen again," said an unidentified woman on Sky television.

The court did not rule on whether earthquakes can be predicted. But Fabio Alessandroni, a civil lawyer who represents the relatives of more than a dozen victims, said the sentence showed that it is possible to have a "culture of prevention."

"It is possible to predict a risk and to adopt measures that mitigate that risk," Mr. Alessandroni said. "It's what the commission is supposed to do," taking various elements, like a city's seismic history, into account. "And this was not done in L'Aquila."

tl;dr, Italy had convicted their top seismologists for not perfectly predicting the magnitude of a quake, something pretty much every scientist ever says is not possible. I'd be shocked if this isn't overturned in appeals, but if not it sets some scary precedents that would make it so doing science in public service is even more unappealing.

[Kuya]

ITT: italians

[Salodin]

Tldr, but I can see some blame being put on them. If there's many small quakes, and the people who are supposed to warn the government that we need to take precaution measures because these are signs that a big one is coming don't do their job and warn the government, then id hold them accountable for that.

Of course, I wouldn't throw them in jail, but they'd most certainly lose their jobs if scientist from another country would have at least told me "hey yo, had a few small quakes lately, might see a big one soon".

If they did this though, disregard.

[Callisto]

Tldr, but I can see some blame being put on them. If there's many small quakes, and the people who are supposed to warn the government that we need to take precaution measures because these are signs that a big one is coming don't do their job and warn the government, then id hold them accountable for that.

Of course, I wouldn't throw them in jail, but they'd most certainly lose their jobs if scientist from another country would have at least told me "hey yo, had a few small quakes lately, might see a big one soon".

If they did this though, disregard.

Basically they looked at their historical data and everything pointed to the follow-up quake not being that bad, they reported it as such. It ended up being a major one, which went against their previous models.

also a bunch of people digested their report as 'oh it's just a little guy so let's stay on the couch and take no precautions'.

[Not Kuno]

We have enough crazy courts and laws making waves here in the US. I hope this doesn't ripple over. This is too hard to say who's at fault here.

[Churchill]

This is enough to make me blow my top

[Baha]

Hopefully this gets overturned, scientists being liable for prison just for trying to do their civic duty seems counterproductive. In the same vein, if you continually overreport the danger, yet nothing ends up happening, people're going to start ignoring the warnings after a couple times. I'm sure putting the scientists in a lose-lose situation will prevent further earthquakes though!

[Abandon]

This has left me pretty shaken.

fapfapfap

[Orden]

This is fucked. I'm convinced all of my fellow humans, regardless of race, are worthless human garbage not able to make informed decisions. Especially the ones in power.

[Boyiee]

Hopefully the appeals process will sway the courts mind. I can see how this would shake up the scientific community though, maybe there will be less cracks in future warning systems. Who knows, we could see a shift in American policies due to this.

[archibaldcrane]

Cracks in future warning systems? There are no warning systems that have any scientific backing for near-event earthquake prediction.

[Boyiee]

Cracks in future warning systems? There are no warning systems that have any scientific backing for near-event earthquake prediction.

[Qalbert]

This has left me pretty shaken.

would you say you're quaking in your boots?

[Salodin]

Fucking Qal ruins the streak october has had for threads that deliver.

[BaneTheBrawler]

This has left me pretty shaken.

/thread

[Orden]

From reddit:

As an italian and a scientist (chemist) I would like to point out two things:

1. The article decries the lack of public debate on the trial. However this is simply an aspect of the judicial system in italy which is purposefully removed from public opinion and only administers laws. Its a different system from the one used in the us where rulings set precedents and a jury is used.

2. The scientists were not charged with failing to predict the earthquake but with pocketing the money they were paid without actually carrying out the work needed for a proper assesment thus leading to the death of 19 residents due to their negligence.

It's distressing to see nature bending the facts like this and for people to not question it at all and give in to the "they are jailing scientists" hysteria.

/thread

Edit: It's actually more complicated than that. The responding comment:

I'd like to weigh in here as a seismologist. Everyone in our community has followed this trial closely, so I'm very familiar with what happened both from a science perspective and in the court case itself

The indictment and subsequent conviction is for providing "inexact, incomplete and contradictory information" in response to the earthquake swarm (see link below). It is not that they "pocketed the money without actually carrying out the work needed for a proper assessment..." The only thing in this vein is that the charges included that their analysis was generic, and not explicit to L'Aquila. To be fair, it is true that their analysis was generic, but they performed the best kind of analysis that was possible given the available data. Without a seismicity model specific to the region, only generic models can be run. This region is not seismically active enough to have a good seismicity model, so they did all they could. All the scientists on the panel (there were bureaucrats, i.e. those from Civil Defense, on the panel) indicated that the risk of a large earthquake had increased, but was still small. They never indicated that there was no risk. Someone from civil defense gave the all clear and said that it was safe to return to their homes. Without this comment I think we wouldn't be talking about this at all.

I should also point out that earthquake swarms are very frequent and almost never result in damaging earthquakes. They do sometimes, hence the scientists indicated that the earthquake probability had increased.

http://www.foxnews.com/science/2012/...ct-earthquake/[1]

This whole thing is made of complex, wibbly wobbly, legally obscure stuff.

[Mazmaz]

I thought they were convicted of manslaughter. What's all this "pocketing money" talk?

[Churchill]

Sounds like the italian reddit guy is generic retard who watches the equivalent of italian foxnews

[BerenTebogo]

My shocked face that a chemist doesn't understand the intricacy of seismological forecasting (and the massive uncertainty in it) or geophysics.

Italy is Middle East tier.

[Nephlite]

Wait so basically something happened, someone (media or close enough) hyped it up to be more than what it was and now people are panicking? Holy. Shit.

Seriously though what was the damages? The restitution of 10 mil is what they defrauded or is that just expenses/settlement?