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Comment by mjreacher | Hacker News Reader

I'm not familiar with NY state law but could something like negligent homicide fit the bill? They were negligent (pushing pills (either knowingly or knowing it was likely) that it would significantly contribute to an opioid epidemic) and it lead to people dying as a result (homicide).

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A bunch of people have written about this. One major obstacle is that it's difficult under the law to get the Sacklers themselves convicted for actions taken random executives in the corporation, especially if (as has been written) the Sacklers were not themselves intimately involved in the operations of Purdue, but rather just the beneficiaries.

I'm not here to defend the Sacklers, who are odious. I'm just saying that there are reasons they aren't on trial for their lives, but rather having their assets attacked.

(I have no opinions about the immunity from further suit they've apparently obtained.)

I guess ultimately it does come down to legal questions but reading some of the cases against them such as this [0] it doesn't seem like there's no ammunition for prosecutors to use. For example on pages (using page numbers listed at the bottom of the page) 104-105 that the Sacklers knew of several doctors that were suspected of prescribing opioids inappropriately yet continued to sell to them. Another example on page 112 states that Sacklers knew that they were selling to an illegal pill mill yet neither stopped selling to them nor reported it for 2 years. I note that other directors and executives are also named as defendants in this case. It most certainly doesn't seem that the Sacklers weren't involved in operations of Perdue, maybe not at a day to day level but they certainly were reported to and advised by Perdue staff very regularly (and they demanded plenty from the staff too).

[0]: https://www.mass.gov/files/documents/2019/01/31/Massachusett...

No, it doesn't really say that at all. It says that staff reported to the board that they suspected doctors of diverting pills. In court, prosecutors would have to prove not only that a specific Sackler knew about this, but that they intentionally directed staff to continue supplying opioids to that doctor. The Sackler, in turn, would have an array of defenses, ranging from "I expected staff to stop supplying opioids to that doctor" to "I wasn't involved in that decision but merely present at a meeting where that statistic among many was discussed". The burden in a criminal case is far higher than "preponderance of evidence".

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