When Alcohol Kills, Who Is Responsible? Benjamin Wynne and his fellow fraternity members downed enough alcohol to run up a bar tab totaling more than $2,000. Matthew Garofalo chugged from a bottle of Southern Comfort that his ALSO SEE: Join the debate: Should colleges, fraternities, or bars be held legally responsible for the alcohol-related deaths of students? Should they be considered morally responsible? "big brother" in the fraternity had provided. Scott Krueger tipped back some Jack Daniel's and then settled in for the night with a bottle of Bacardi spiced rum. The three were doing what fraternity pledges have done for decades: pouring copious amounts of beer and hard liquor into their stomachs in an initiation-night ritual. Many pledges wake up the next day with a nasty headache and stories worth swapping for years to come. But Mr. Wynne, Mr. Garofalo, and Mr. Krueger did not wake up. Mr. Garofalo, a sophomore at the University of Iowa, choked on his own vomit in September 1995. Mr. Wynne, a junior at Louisiana State University, died of alcohol poisoning last fall. The death of Mr. Krueger, a freshman at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a month later was attributed to both causes. After such tragedies, lawyers descend and finger-pointing begins. Colleges are accused of winking at Animal House antics rather than suspending chapters for patterns of behavior that end in death. Bars are found to have served underage patrons, and to have waited far too long to turn off the spigot. Fraternity members swear oaths to look out for one another, but investigations turn up commands to "drink 'til you puke." In the three articles that follow, The Chronicle examines the question that juries will soon face: "Who is to blame when a night of drinking goes awry?" Mr. Krueger's family says it will try to show in court that had M.I.T. corralled its reckless fraternities, or required freshmen to live in dormitories, he would still be alive. Mr. Wynne's family takes aim at the bar that served the liquor that killed him. Mr. Garofalo's family has filed suit against the fraternity that they say pressured their son to drink too much. http://chronicle.com Section: Students Page: A57