Families of dead passengers just lost a long legal battle to prevent an alleged overly lenient settlement that the US Department of Justice has made with Boeing Corporation with respect to the crashes of its 737 MAX aircraft. Boeing stood accused of falsifying safety information, about problems with the automated flight control system, in order to get the plane approved by the FAA. The Justice Department and Boeing reached a “deferred prosecution agreement” which will allow the company to entirely avoid being charged with a crime. Instead, it will pay a hefty fine to the US government and give a promise that it will reform.

Prior to rejecting the families arguments, however, back in January, the same judge had presided over the arraignment of Boeing’s chief aerospace safety officer, Mike Delaney, who entered a not guilty plea. At that time, the judge listened to relatives of the dead, who explained how the crashes affected their lives. The families were seeking harsher penalties, including forcing Boeing to operate under an independent monitor who would oversee all the plane maker’s compliance with the criminal settlement, among other things. Judge O’Connor said that he was sympathetic to the families’ position, but that their rights under the law had been quote, unquote, “substantially and meaningfully satisfied.” He said he felt it was a mistake for the Justice Department to be so lenient, but that the court had no jurisdiction to reject a deferred prosecution agreement.

The judge claimed he couldn’t modify the Boeing agreement’s terms to quote, unquote “adequately reflect the court’s assessment that doing so would better effect justice for the crime victims.” According to him, he is constrained by limits in his authority imposed by Congress and cannot change things, regardless of how he felt about it. The families say they’ll appeal to a higher court in pursuit of the hope that, in addition to putting extra money in the government’s collective pocket, some teeth can also be put into prosecution agreement.