the author is ben guyer, and he's with us now. so ben, answer the question to your headline. could gm face murder charges? >> well, no, but they could in theory be charged with manslaughter. >> what would have to take place for that company to be charged with manslaughter, which, of course, bp pleaded guilty to after the deepwater horizon explosion back a few years ago? what has to take place? >> so basically for them to be charged with manslaughter, you have to find that someone at the company took an action that they knew could kill people, and they were doing it for the company while they were in a sound state of[i7cñmind. >> all right. so it really had to be some kind ofç deliberate thought process which may not be the case here. but are some kind of charges likely in this whole case? >> well, it's always possible we'll see criminal charges. what's probably more likely is the department of justice is going to go the civil route. levy some fines against gm which could be fairly significant, much larger than the 35 million that the department of transportation and nitsa le