PASADENA, Calif. (CN) — The captain of the dive boat that burned down off the California coast in 2019, killing 34 people trapped below deck, on Tuesday tried to persuade a panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals to overturn his seaman’s manslaughter conviction.
Jerry Boylan, 71, was sentenced to four years in prison last year. A jury had taken no more than a day to convict him of gross negligence in the death of 33 passengers and one crew member on board the Conception during an overnight scuba diving trip near Santa Barbara.
The trial judge, U.S. District Judge George Wu, allowed Boylan to await the outcome of his appeal at home after agreeing with him that there was a “substantial question of law” whether the statute under which the captain was found guilty — misconduct or neglect by a ship officer resulting in death — required the judge to instruct the jury, as he hadn’t done, that Boylan’s conduct needed to be the actual cause of the fatalities on board…