The Barge on the Canal

A tug was pushing a barge loaded with slurry oil between two Illinois cities one January day when the barge exploded. The blast threw a deckhand into the water, and he did not survive; oil was also discharged. The government alleged that the tug's master had told the deckhand to warm a pump using a propane torch, causing the explosion. Before any criminal charges were filed, a federal judge in a civil case over the tug company's liability had found that the government did not prove, even by a preponderance of the evidence, that the deckhand was using a propane torch on the cargo pump, and the government did not appeal. At the later criminal trial, a judge sitting without a jury convicted the master and the company. They argued the earlier civil finding barred the prosecution.