Chief U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy in Missoula has to make a crucial decision in the conspiracy and endangerment case against W.R. Grace & Co.

Victims need a voice in Grace trial

Molloy will decide on the request of the company and its former leaders not to allow victim witnesses in the case to testify. These are people who were allegedly sickened by asbestos contamination at the company's vermiculite mine in Libby.

The lawyers argue that seeing people struggling for breath on oxygen machines and pushing themselves to the witness stand in wheelchairs would be extremely prejudicial to the jury.

The lawyers also want to exclude expert testimony from a doctor who diagnoses asbestos-related illnesses.

Prosecutors in the case, U.S. Assistant Attorneys Kris McLean and Kevin Cassidy, wonder how they can make their case if victim witnesses and expert testimony is excluded.

There is no question that a jury could react emotionally to the testimony of someone wheezing through damaged lungs, anticipating a premature death, and blaming that on a company that didn't warn its workers and the community that they were exposed to a substance that could injure them.

That doesn't mean the jury should not hear from those victim witnesses. They and their families are the basis of the case against Grace.

Our country grants every defendant a right to face his or her accuser in court. There is no provision for protecting a defendant in court from an accuser whose presence is uncomfortable, awkward, or even heart-breaking.

Going to trial without allowing the victim witnesses to tell their stories would be preposterous. While the defendants argue about how prejudicial their testimony would be, imagine how prejudicial it would be if it were excluded. How could a jury not surmise that the alleged victims didn't even care enough to show up or that there is something fundamentally flawed about what they would say if they did?

Despite Grace's efforts to make it seem otherwise, there is nothing unusual in having sympathetic victim witnesses appear before juries. Young victims of child molestation, people disfigured or hurt in acts of violence, survivors of drunk-driving accidents that killed a beloved relative are allowed to tell their stories. Then, the judge tells jurors not to be influenced by passion, prejudice, sympathy, or community sentiment, just the facts in evidence.

It has to be that way. Our judicial system cannot become so sanitized that jurors are not allowed to hear from victims.

We trust that Judge Molloy will do the right thing.