Scapegoats trial for Davis-Besse incident

One of the worst nuclear incident in recent years is The Davis-Besse Incident (look it up!). Now there is a trial of two unfortunate souls. In the nuclear business, we have seen many presentations on this thing. It was as much a total institutional failure as the space shuttle. We generally consider it more important than 3 mile island, because of the great potential for radiation release. Is there something in the US psychology that they have to pick people from the crowd, and string them up? (They like to do that about music-sharing, as well).