Karen Silkwood’s Dark Victory

Four and a half years of effort had come down to one day, Monday, May 14th — down to the closing argument of Karen Silkwood trial counsel Gerry Spence. When he finished, the $11.5 million lawsuit against the country’s largest uranium producer would be turned over to the six-person federal jury in Oklahoma City.

Scores of volunteers had contributed to the Quixotic campaign to vindicate the late Karen Silkwood, a former lab technician at Kerr-McGee’s local plutonium plant who was killed in a November 1974 car crash while on her way to deliver alleged evidence of safety violations to a union investigator. There were two young women (Sara Nelson and Kitty Tucker) who persuaded Congress to intervene in the case, three idealistic lawyers (Danny Sheehan, Arthur Angel and Jim Ikard) who took on a lawsuit without a fee and against the advice of friends, and two Catholic priests who tracked down witnesses in a dozen states. Several former nuclear workers testified in court despite skepticism from their neighbors. And anonymous others donated ten-dollar checks or spent an afternoon at a Xerox machine.

On Monday morning, federal marshals had to stand guard against an overflow crowd at the courthouse. The first opportunity to address the jury went to Spence, the Silkwood side’s “hired gun” from Wyoming. Next came two attorneys for the Kerr-McGee Corporation with their rejoinder. Then it was Spence’s turn again.

Spence, a big, earthy westerner with two decades of experience as a criminal prosecutor and personal-injury lawyer, had been initially reluctant to join what seemed “like a high-risk loser.”

Now, he stepped to the jury box, his voice shrouded in emotion. “Throughout history there have been certain times when ordinary people have been given extraordinary power,” he declared, leaning forward until his eyes locked with those of the nearest juror. “This could be one of those times. There may never be another trial like this. There may never be another judge who will allow it. There may never be a jury with this chance….”

The jurors stared back without expression. Spence rumbled on, then paused and looked up at the silver hands of a clock set into the tall walnut walls. It was now just past seven o’clock in the evening. There had been ten weeks of testimony, the longest civil trial in Oklahoman history, and eight hours of closing arguments.

After a short recess, Spence stood and spoke quietly to the jury. “I want to tell you a story,” he said.

“There once was a smart-alecky boy who tried to trick a wise old man. He caught a tiny bird in his hands and brought it to the man. ‘What do I have in my hands?’ the boy asked innocently, letting the bird’s face peek out.

“It’s a bird, my son,’ the old man replied.

“Tell me, old man, is it dead or alive?’ If the man guessed ‘dead,’ the boy thought, he would let the bird fly free. If the man guessed ‘alive,’ the boy would crush it with his fingers.

“The old man smiled. ‘My son, it’s in your hands.'”

Spence sat down and the jurors filed out.

The six Oklahoman jurors were the first private citizens to sit in judgment of the nuclear-power industry since the “Atoms for Peace” program began twenty-five years ago. The list of decisions they faced was awesome. Do government radiation standards really protect workers and the public or are they, as the Silkwood side charged, a “meaningless numbers game”? Did Kerr-McGee operate a safe nuclear factory or was it “grossly and wantonly negligent”? Had Kerr-McGee defrauded the government by producing defective fuel rods? Was its security system so inadequate that forty pounds of plutonium, enough for four bombs, had been lost or stolen?

The implications for the nuclear industry were considerable. The accidental release of radiation from Pennsylvania’s Three Mile Island reactor in late March (which triggered a motion by Kerr-McGee for a mistrial) had appalled the nation. Many neighbors of Three Mile Island were waiting for the verdict. If the jury decided against Kerr-McGee, some Pennsylvanians planned to use the Silkwood testimony in their own lawsuits.

People exposed to radiation in a half-dozen other states were also anticipating the trial’s outcome. The possibility of a legal chain reaction clearly worried the nuclear industry. Representatives of the Atomic Industrial Forum, the industry’s political arm, kept a courtroom vigil, and one of its high-priced legal trouble-shooters was used to shore up Kerr-McGee’s defense.

The first effects of the decision would probably be felt in Denver, which was dusted with plutonium when fires broke out in 1957 and 1969 at the nearby Rocky Flats weapons factory. Hundreds of cancer deaths may have been related to the airborne contamination. Both fires had been routine police-blotter news. But Denver’s residents were now showing signs of belated anger. On April 28th, nearly 15,000 protesters caravaned to a pasture near the factory to demand that it be closed. In Washington a week later, a crowd of 100,000 took the protest to the steps of Capitol Hill. Other rallies were being prepared for the summer. This week, however, the attention of the antinuclear movement was focused on Oklahoma City.

U.S. District Judge Frank G. Theis, who presided over the case, placed it in this context: “It’s not really fair to say the nuclear industry is on trial here, but I think the jury can send the industry a message.”