Blackwater Decision Out: Sentences Cruel And Unusual (With Dissent)
The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit has decided the criminal case involving Blackwater employees involved in the 2007 shootings in Baghdad
Nicholas Slatten, Paul Slough, Evan Liberty and Dustin Heard (“defendants”) were contractors with Blackwater Worldwide Security (ABlackwater@), which in 2007 was providing security services to the United States State Department in Iraq. As a result of Baghdad shootings that injured or killed at least 31 Iraqi civilians, Slough, Liberty and Heard were convicted by a jury of voluntary manslaughter, attempted manslaughter and using and discharging a firearm in relation to a crime of violence (or aiding-and-abetting the commission of those crimes); Slatten was convicted of first degree murder. They now challenge their convictions on jurisdictional, procedural and several substantive grounds.
For the following reasons, we hold that the Court has jurisdiction pursuant to the Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act (“MEJA”), 18 U.S.C. §§ 3261 et seq., and that venue in the District of Columbia was proper. We further hold that the district court did not abuse its discretion in denying the defendants= motion for a new trial based on post-trial statements of a government witness. Regarding the challenges to the sufficiency of the evidence, we hold that the evidence was sufficient as to all except one of Liberty’s attempted manslaughter convictions, and that the evidence was sufficient as to Slatten. We further hold that Slatten’s indictment charging first-degree murder did not constitute vindictive prosecution.
The Court concludes, however, that statements made by a co-defendant shortly following the attack, statements asserting that he—not Slatten—fired the first shots on the day in
question, were admissible. Accordingly, the Court concludes that the district court abused its discretion in denying Slatten’s motion to sever his trial from that of his co-defendants and therefore vacates his conviction and remands for a new trial. Moreover, the Court concludes that imposition of the mandatory thirty-year minimum under 18 U.S.C. § 924(c), as applied here, violates the Eighth Amendment prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment, a holding from which Judge Rogers dissents. The Court therefore remands for the resentencing of Slough, Liberty and Heard.
On the Eighth Amendment issue
The sentences are cruel in that they impose a 30-year sentence based on the fact that private security contractors in a war zone were armed with government-issued automatic rifles and explosives. They are unusual because they apply Section 924(c) in a manner it has never been applied before to a situation which Congress never contemplated. We again emphasize these defendants can and should be held accountable for the death and destruction they unleashed on the innocent Iraqi civilians who were harmed by their actions. But instead of using the sledgehammer of a mandatory 30-year sentence, the sentencing court should instead use more nuanced tools to impose sentences proportionally tailored to the culpability of each defendant.
Circuit Judge Rogers concurred and dissented
First, in accordance with the Supreme Court’s instruction, portions of a co-defendant’s statements to investigators should have been admitted in Slatten’s defense, but not as a result of unduly expanding a narrow residual hearsay exception when the statements are covered by an established exception. Second, defendants’ Eighth Amendment challenge lacks any merit whatsoever, especially in view of the district court judge’s express assessment, which my colleagues ignore, that the sentences were an appropriate response to the human carnage for which these defendants were convicted by a jury…
Paul Slough was convicted by a jury of killing thirteen (13) people and attempting to kill seventeen (17) others. Evan Liberty was convicted by a jury of killing eight (8) people and attempting to kill twelve (12) others. Dustin Heard was convicted by a jury of killing six (6) people and attempting to kill eleven (11) others.
Circuit Judge Brown concurred and dissented on other grounds
The question of how our criminal justice system should treat private contractors who commit crimes overseas in war time is a difficult one. However, Congress has made the determination that such individuals should be held responsible for their actions in federal courts if they either work for the military or commit a crime during the performance of a task related to supporting the military, such as the atrocities committed at Abu Ghraib. Today’s opinion expands MEJA beyond the limits defined by this history and clearly laid out in the text. Because it is not possible to conclude, beyond a reasonable doubt, that the erroneous instruction did not improperly influence the ultimate outcome of the case, I respectfully dissent from this portion of the Court’s decision.
(Mike Frisch)