Lawyer Calls Life Sentence for Knowingly Selling Salmonella-Tainted Peanut Butter and Killing 9 “Truly Absurd”

Mass murder is defined as the act of killing multiple people, though the particulars differ depending on who is doing the defining. The FBI, for example, defines mass murder as, “a number of murders (four or more) occurring during the same incident, with no distinctive time period between the murders. These events typically involved a single location, where the killer murdered a number of victims in an ongoing incident…”

So why it comes as a shock to anyone that the following actions of a peanut executive could possibly be defined as mass murder is ridiculous.

The feds have recommended a life sentence in the case of former Peanut Corporation of America owner Stewart Parnell who has been convicted in the case of selling truckloads of knowingly salmonella-tainted peanut butter out of his Georgia plant even after the product tested positive or the deadly bacteria.

A little background here. Not only did nine people die from eating this stuff, but more than 700 others were sickened by it. Throughout the trial, Parnell took the Fifth on even the simplest of questions, but it didn’t matter. Congress even held a hearing and attempted to put Parnell through “the walk of shame” on his actions:

The peanut man didn’t bother showing up to hear the grieving relatives of his company’s alleged victims testify, and he looked bored throughout his flogging. When it was over and he’d ditched the cameras waiting outside, he smiled as a colleague gave him a congratulatory pat on the back. “Parnell, it would seem, is a man without shame.” (source)

In the end, Parnell was found guilty. Somehow, though, it still managed to shock him and his attorney that a life sentence has been recommended for his actions.

While it is true the penalty is one of the harshest ever recommended in a food safety related infraction, Parnell’s attorney Ken Hodges went on the record to call the recommended life sentence “truly absurd.”

Absurd? Really?

The guy knowingly sold products for consumption tainted with deadly bacteria. Nine people died and from the number of those who fell ill, it’s only by mere luck more people didn’t die at Parnell’s hands. Mass murder is mass murder, regardless of the apparent motive (greed) or the defendant’s depraved indifference.

Maybe the real shock is that one of these corporate executives is actually being held accountable for his actions for once instead of being able to hide behind the corporate banner and get by with a fine as usually happens in cases like these…

The judge will decide Parnell’s fate in September.