Based on that, Stone asked, “Do you still wish to hear from a witness to answer the questions that you previously asked about the Town of West Warwick, the fire marshal’s duties, inspections and types of inspections that are done?”

One grand juror asked Stone to define “bad faith.”

Stone replied: “I think our legal interpretation of bad faith would be that the person would have to be, you know, acting and knowing that there’s something wrong and ignoring it for some particular purpose and the maliciously would be equal to an evil intent almost as in, you know, the maliciousness you need for committing any crime.

“You really have to find, and there would have to be evidence to show, that the person either knew there was something wrong and ignored it purposely or perhaps was doing it for other reasons, maybe for pecuniary gain or something like that, but as far as acting in good faith and without malice, they’re exempt from civil or criminal liability. Yes, sir.”

“Why have a fire marshal?” the grand juror retorted. “If the fire marshal did nothing, not responsible for anything, why have a fire marshal? There’s no use in having a fire marshal.”

“Sir, you would have to ask the General Assembly that,” Asst. Atty. Gen. William Ferland told him.

“Yes,” said Stone. “That’s the statute they enacted and I will say one other thing is, you know, regardless of what this yes, you know, we’re all responsible, you know, for knowing the law, I mean for – for obeying the law as it stands. You can’t get around that, so I’m telling you that this statute in this instance, in our opinion, would relieve a fire marshal [who was] performing his duties in good faith and without malice for any act or omission that he may have or may not have committed.”

A grand juror then asked the prosecutor “so for malice, I wrote down evil intent.”

“Correct,” Ferland said.

“Yes,” echoes Stone.

“What kind of words can I put down for bad faith?” the grand juror asked.

Ferland then launched into a long explanation of malice, which he said included “a conscious intent on the part of the actor.”

“What about bad faith?’’ the grand juror pressed. “Can you give us an example of bad faith?”

The prosecutors didn’t directly answer the question.

Another grand juror asked the prosecutors what the rationale was behind the General Assembly enacting a statute that, in most cases, would protect fire inspectors from being held liable.

“It would be pure speculation on our part to say what the rationale is,” Ferland said. “One thing to consider though is that many of these fire inspectors … are volunteer firefighters and they perform these duties on behalf of fire districts, local fire districts in a volunteer capacity, so one thing that the General Assembly could have had in mind – and this is mere speculation – is that you’re not going to find many people coming out and volunteering their time to conduct such inspections if they know they are going to be liable for negligently performing those tasks, and so in an effort to encourage people to volunteer their time in a day and age when we still rely heavily upon volunteer firefighters, the General Assembly may, in its infinite wisdom, have decided to provide this prophylactic protection to those people who are willing to go forward.”

West Warwick’s fire inspector was not a volunteer fire inspector. Larocque was employed as a full-time firefighter, with benefits, for the Town of West Warwick and is still employed there.

Ferland told the grand jurors: “Whether we agree with the wisdom of the General Assembly or not, it is irrelevant. We can talk about how outrageous it might be that a particular statute was enacted or not enacted but we are duty bound to follow the law whether we agree with it or we don’t.”