Well Federal Court Judge Duval ruled that the ACOE, though guilty of negligence in the design and construction of the Flood walls for our outfal canals was immune from prosecution due to a 1928 Law.
Here are some of his words: “In his ruling, Duval said he was forced by law to hold the Corps immune even though the agency “cast a blind eye” in protecting New Orleans and “squandered millions of dollars in building a levee system … which was known to be inadequate by the Corps’ own calculations.”
In my way of seeing things, this is no longer a Civil case, but a Criminal case.
More from Judge Duval: “The byzantine funding and appropriation methods for this undertaking were in large part a cause of this failure,” Duval said, referring to the politics-riddled process Congress has for funding Corps projects.”
I understand Judge Duval’s reasoning on this. This case will have to climb the judicial ladder to the Supremes in order to get a just decision. This will most definitely have to go to the Congress. The ACOE committed criminal actions, but the U.S. Congress is also to blame. The point of our Gov’mental system is to aid our citizens, not cheap out their protections that all of us Americans desire for each other and ourselves. (The Social Contract, remember?) We are all in this together, ‘eh?
And today this from California.
As an engineer myself, though not an ACOE-type, it’s beyond time to cleanse house and actually do the J.O.B. they are paid to do, period. As a citizen, and a Veteran, I want to see the ACOE cleaned out and some form of responsibility concerning the building of protections for our Country’s people to be straightened out so there is way for reparations when the Feds fuck up.
That which is authorized by, and paid for by, the citizens of this country must be freakin’ applied properly in each and every instance.
Distasteful though it may be, the judge was nonetheless correct as a matter of law. The 5th Cir is going to affirm and the Supremes will likely deny cert. There is no new law here for them to ponder. Further, I think it likely that the 5th will hold that the MRGO levee is a flood control feature (in Robinson, despite Graci). While the channel itself was a navigation project, the levee is flood control. At the end of the day, the attempts to use courts to craft policy will fail. Plaintiffs have so far lost 3 of 4 and I think it will be 0 for 4 at the end of the day. The “E & P canals made Katrina worse” suit was dismissed (properly so IMHO), homeowners doesn’t cover flood (agian I agree), 702 confers immunity (all too true), and the dsicretionary exemption will defeat Robinson even if the 5th decides that Graci controls. (I think the 5th Cir will distinguish.) By all means put your hopes in legislature as driven by public opinion. If there is to be more federal for N.O. that must b ethe source, ’cause it won’t be via a judgment from a court . . . .
Comment by Kelly Haggar — February 3, 2008 @ 9:56 am