A federal appeals court has upheld the criminal conviction of Jerry Boylan, former captain of the California dive-liveaboard Conception, for seaman’s manslaughter related to the 2019 overnight fire that killed 34 people in his charge.
On 3 March a panel of the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed the conviction and rejected Boylan’s appeal.
Boylan, 72, had been convicted following a trial in November 2023 in the US District Court for the Central District of California on a single count of seaman’s manslaughter – misconduct or neglect by a ship’s officer causing death.
He was sentenced to four years in federal prison for the offence in May 2024 but had remained free on bail pending a verdict on his appeal.
Thirty-three guests and one crew-member died of smoke inhalation and asphyxiation in a fire while trapped in a bunk-room below decks with limited means of exit off the Channel Islands.
Boylan had failed to appoint the required overnight roving watch on the night of the fire, or to institute adequate fire-safety drills.
His crew, asleep with him in the wheelhouse, had been poorly trained and were said to have been panic-stricken when they became aware of the fire, thought to have started in a rubbish bin in the early hours of the morning. They had jumped overboard following Boylan and made their way to safety.
Boylan’s appeal had been based on the district court’s instructions to the jury. His counsel had claimed that trial judge George Wu had mis-stated the legal standard required for conviction and improperly referenced terms such as ‘misconduct’.
However, the appeals court panel held that, as a matter of law, the statute required ‘negligence’ rather than “gross negligence” to have occurred. It decided that any error in the wording of the instruction had been harmless because the jury had been repeatedly instructed on the correct standard, and the evidence supporting conviction was overwhelming.
A concurring opinion noted that the panel would find any instructional error harmless based on the strength of the evidence alone. The appeals court affirmed the judgment of the lower court, so the conviction and sentence stand. Boylan is now expected to serve the remainder of his sentence in prison.
