From Philip Dray's There is Power In a Union:
"Better prepared to “save themselves,” at least in the short term, were the two owners of the Triangle factory, Isaac Harris and Max Blanck. Their trial in December 1912 on charges of first- and second-degree manslaughter took place amid still-volatile public sentiment: that the two villains be found guilty and harshly punished was a prospect awaited eagerly by virtually all New Yorkers. Families of the dead were especially riled that Harris and Blanck, in the eighteen months since the fire, had been allowed to carry on with their shirtwaist business, using a building on University Place not far from the Asch Building; they had hardly missed a production deadline.
The most damning charge against the partners was that they had locked the stairway doors in violation of existing safety codes, trapping the victims. Their defense attorney, Max D. Steuer, however, was successful at diminishing the impact of eyewitness testimony in a series of tough cross-examinations, chiefly by suggesting that young immigrant girls were not reliable in their recollections of what had occurred as a result of their sheer panic during the event and their severe emotional distress afterward. Steuer also managed to create sufficient doubt as to whether either Harris or Blanck had known that the stairway doors were locked at the time of the fire.
To universal disappointment both men were acquitted. As one juror, echoing the defense’s argument, told a reporter, “I cannot see that anyone was responsible for the disaster. It seems to me to have been anact of the Almighty.... I think the girls who worked there were not as intelligent as those in other walks of life and were therefore the more susceptible to panic."