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Tree Felling Negligent Homicide Trial Begins
BRENTWOOD, NH -– When the 80-foot pine tree that crushed Jon Paul LaVigueur was falling, Wayne Souther told jurors he thought he was going to be injured as well.
"I just thought to myself, this is going to hurt," Souther testified Tuesday about tripping over nearby wooden crates in his path. "But then I got up and saw Jon Paul on the ground."
Maurice Buzzell, who was LaVigueur's boss and owner of the tree removal business, went on trial Tuesday on charges of negligent homicide and reckless conduct in Rockingham County Superior Court.
LaVigueur was killed at a property on 15th Street in Kingston on Aug. 7, 2007, a day before his 23rd birthday. Prosecutors are alleging Buzzell ran an unsafe workplace, a finding that an investigator with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration made when he looked into the circumstances of LaVigueur's death.
Prosecutors say those violations led to LaVigueur's death.
LaVigueur and three of his co-workers were using a broken rope, already too short to pull down the pine tree, when the massive trunk fell, prosecutors said.
"The defendant said, 'Don't let go of the rope until the tree starts to fall,'" Assistant County Attorney Amy Connolly said during opening statements.
Souther testified that Buzzell took the shorter rope and tied it to another rope hanging from a nearby tree so the men could use it to pull down three, which was being taken down in sections.
"This rope had previously been broke," Souther, of East Hampstead, testified. "It was broken on a job site. We tied the rope to a truck and tied other end to a tree and it snapped."
The trial this week in Rockingham County Superior Court will include eyewitnesses who worked for Buzzell that day along with police and industry experts.
The defense is expected to call their own experts who say that prosecutors are citing safety standards that can't be applied to Buzzell's kind of tree-cutting business.
"The guidelines the government (is using) have been misapplied," defense lawyer Steven Colella said. "This was not a logging operation. This was arborist work and this was, in fact, a completely different animal." Colella suggested Buzzell actually made the work environment safer that day by instructing workers to lop off branches on a tree until it stood as a single pole before cutting it down.
"The process that took place that day was acceptable," he said. "It was a process that (LaVigueur) engaged in a 100 different prior occasions. This isn't something he was thrown into."
He said the only thing that didn't go as planned was the direction LaVigueuer ran to escape the falling tree's path.
Buzzell's trial is expected to last two to three days. If convicted on either charge, he faces 3 1/2 to 7 years in state prison.
Tree Felling Negligent Homicide Trial Begins
BRENTWOOD, NH -– When the 80-foot pine tree that crushed Jon Paul LaVigueur was falling, Wayne Souther told jurors he thought he was going to be injured as well.
"I just thought to myself, this is going to hurt," Souther testified Tuesday about tripping over nearby wooden crates in his path. "But then I got up and saw Jon Paul on the ground."
Maurice Buzzell, who was LaVigueur's boss and owner of the tree removal business, went on trial Tuesday on charges of negligent homicide and reckless conduct in Rockingham County Superior Court.
LaVigueur was killed at a property on 15th Street in Kingston on Aug. 7, 2007, a day before his 23rd birthday. Prosecutors are alleging Buzzell ran an unsafe workplace, a finding that an investigator with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration made when he looked into the circumstances of LaVigueur's death.
Prosecutors say those violations led to LaVigueur's death.
LaVigueur and three of his co-workers were using a broken rope, already too short to pull down the pine tree, when the massive trunk fell, prosecutors said.
"The defendant said, 'Don't let go of the rope until the tree starts to fall,'" Assistant County Attorney Amy Connolly said during opening statements.
Souther testified that Buzzell took the shorter rope and tied it to another rope hanging from a nearby tree so the men could use it to pull down three, which was being taken down in sections.
"This rope had previously been broke," Souther, of East Hampstead, testified. "It was broken on a job site. We tied the rope to a truck and tied other end to a tree and it snapped."
The trial this week in Rockingham County Superior Court will include eyewitnesses who worked for Buzzell that day along with police and industry experts.
The defense is expected to call their own experts who say that prosecutors are citing safety standards that can't be applied to Buzzell's kind of tree-cutting business.
"The guidelines the government (is using) have been misapplied," defense lawyer Steven Colella said. "This was not a logging operation. This was arborist work and this was, in fact, a completely different animal." Colella suggested Buzzell actually made the work environment safer that day by instructing workers to lop off branches on a tree until it stood as a single pole before cutting it down.
"The process that took place that day was acceptable," he said. "It was a process that (LaVigueur) engaged in a 100 different prior occasions. This isn't something he was thrown into."
He said the only thing that didn't go as planned was the direction LaVigueuer ran to escape the falling tree's path.
Buzzell's trial is expected to last two to three days. If convicted on either charge, he faces 3 1/2 to 7 years in state prison.
