A federal judge has dismissed all charges against five Blackwater Worldwide security guards charged in a deadly Baghdad shooting.http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2009/12/31/national/w124014S96.DTL
U.S. District Judge Ricardo Urbina said Thursday the Justice Department overstepped its bounds and wrongly used evidence it was not allowed to see. He said the government's explanations have been contradictory, unbelievable and not credible.
:yahoo:DITTO'S!!!! :cheersmate:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2009/12/31/national/w124014S96.DTLI am glad that Four Eyed Buzzard Waxman finally got knocked down he has been trying to nail Blackwater for over 4 years.
The jerks in the Justice Dept. are not happy. :fuelfire: :lmao:
What no DUmmie thread yet?
Alcibiades (1000+ posts) Journal Click to send private message to this author Click to view this author's profile Click to add this author to your buddy list Click to add this author to your Ignore list Thu Dec-31-09 03:54 PM
Response to Original message
3. Even murdr of civilians is OK
if you're a Republican.
Synicus Maximus (269 posts) Click to send private message to this author Click to view this author's profile Click to add this author to your buddy list Click to add this author to your Ignore list Thu Dec-31-09 06:40 PM
Response to Reply #11
33. The judge was appointed by Clinton in n1994
First Ted Stevens now this.
WTF is DoJ doing?
Some DUmmys assplodin here:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x4206116
paulsby (1000+ posts) Thu Dec-31-09 09:55 PM
Response to Reply #63
66. it's called rule of law
of course if a criminal got off on a technicality, it would piss me off.
guess what? it happens a lot.
but IF (and maybe you don't believe in this) you believe in rule of law and constitutional rights, then you accept a fundamental proposition of our criminal justice system "it is better that 10 guilty men go free, than that an innocent man go to jail"
even scumbags, and god knows i've arrested scumbags deserve protection of law.
only on DU would a person criticize a cop for DEFENDING the constitution. lol
the US is unique amongst most nations, for example, in having an automatic exclusionary rule. in england, for instance, evidence illegally obtained often CAN be used against a suspect. a suspect also does NOT have the right to remain silent. if they do, it CAN be used against them.
do you believe in civil rights or not
it's actually pretty ironic.
most of the cop haters here think we routinely violate civil rights, and then i get criticized for defending them.
i could cut the irony with a ladle.
WASHINGTON (AP) — FBI scientists were unable to match bullets from a deadly 2007 Baghdad shooting to guns carried by Blackwater Worldwide security guards, according to laboratory reports that leave open the possibility that insurgents also fired in the crowded intersection.
Five Blackwater guards face manslaughter and weapons charges for their role in the shooting, which left 17 Iraqis dead and inflamed anti-U.S. sentiment abroad. Prosecutors say the contractors launched an unprovoked attack on civilians with machine guns and grenade launchers. The guards maintain their convoy was ambushed by insurgents.
The FBI lab reports, obtained by The Associated Press from someone not involved in the criminal case, allow for both possibilities.
Investigators recovered .30-caliber bullets from a survivor, a Blackwater truck and around Baghdad's Nisoor Square. Scientists could not determine whether those bullets came from .30-caliber Blackwater machine guns.
The AK-47 rifles favored by many Iraqi insurgents also fire .30-caliber bullets.
Nobody disputes that Blackwater guards fired, but accounts vary on whether the convoy of armored trucks was attacked. Iraqi witnesses and some members of the Blackwater convoy told authorities they saw no insurgent gunfire. Radio logs show Blackwater guards repeatedly reporting incoming fire during a hectic eight minutes in which one truck was disabled.
The NY Times has more details on Judge Urbina's decision to drop charges against the Blackwater defendants, accused of murdering Iraqis in a 2007 ambush on a State Department convoy moving through downtown Baghdad:I used Feldman's AT article for a couple of reasons. First, the NYT, which she quotes, has a habit of making articles registered-only after being publicly available for a couple of days. Second, Feldman made the same point in a previous article about the number of Federal cases that came apart recently for prosecutorial misconduct. Add the cases of the Haditha Marines to the list, though those were in the military justice system.QuoteThe judge also blasted prosecutors for withholding "substantial exculpatory evidence" from the grand jury that indicted the defendants, as well as presenting "distorted versions" of witness testimony, and improperly telling the grand jury that some incriminating statements had been made by the defendants but were being withheld.
...
Early in the year, for example, at the request of Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr., a federal judge threw out the conviction of former Senator Ted Stevens, Republican of Alaska ...
And last month, a federal judge threw out a major stock option back-dating case against top executives of the chip-maker Broadcom after finding that a prosecutor in that case had inappropriately pressured witnesses to testify in a manner favorable to prosecutors.
The judge also blasted prosecutors for withholding "substantial exculpatory evidence" from the grand jury that indicted the defendants ...The DU-folk, libs and progs whose heads are exploding at this dismissal of charges might find this part of the judge's ruling a bit hard to digest. :evillaugh: :rotf: :uhsure: And it's the NYT reporting it! :uhsure: :rotf: :evillaugh:
I'm not saying they were all guilty, but neither could I say that they were all entirely innocent either, fire discipline by contractors especially left a huge amount to be desired back then.
Like SVPete astutely points out, this was a disposition on reasons other than the merits of the case...and the same thing can happen just as easily with five other defendants formerly housed in luxury Caribbean accommodations who had been looking at military tribunal hearings.
This link, in the Volokh Conspiracy article, is a pdf of the judge's ruling. (http://volokh.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/urbina-orderdismissing1.pdf) I missed noticing the hyperlink until reading through the comments after a friend's post. The evidence withheld, as described by the judge, is directly and specifically exculpatory; the selective intent was evident to the judge, as well as in violation of federal regs. The evidence withheld supports the Defense's claim that the Blackwater guards shot in self-defense. I'm not a lawyer, but IMO, part of the reasons for dismissal amounts to a ruling on the merits of the government's case.
I won't bore you with the legalese, but no, self-defense is an 'Affirmative defense,' which means it is a call for the jury to make in the trial on the merits, not one for the judge to make pretrial (Probably why the DOJ made noises about appealing), unless there is not even one tiny shred of contradictory evidence, which is essentially an impossible standard to meet.
Just for what it's worth, when almost a dozen and a half people are involved in mass firing on one side, and miraculously none of them are hit by enemy fire but dozens of people in the crowd they shot at were hit and some number killed, self-defense is not exactly a 100% easy sell.
They are very lucky, for the most part it may be well-deserved but in a few cases it may also be totally unjust, but that's the way the legal cookie crumbles.
Indeed, self-defense is an affirmative defense that a defendant must plead and prove; however, as I understand it, the ruling wasn't that the defendants were acting in self-defense, but that the government withheld material exculpatory evidence that might have been useful to the defendants in making such a defense. Such a withholding of material exculpatory evidence can be grounds for dismissal of the charges, has no bearing on the potential underlying claim of self-defense, and if the factual findings that underlie the ultimate finding that the government withheld material exculpatory evidence for no particularly good reason are detailed enough, that ruling will be almost impossible to overturn on appeal.
My comments on self-defense were addressed to the content of Pets's post, not the opinion itself. The reason you discuss for dismissal still boils down to an entirely-procedural disposition of the case, based on the Government's breach of certain evidentiary rules, which brings us right back to the main point I was making, i.e. the very real possibility that the same thing can easily happen with the five former Gitmo inmates.
My comments on self-defense were addressed to the content of Pete's post, not the opinion itself. The reason you discuss for dismissal still boils down to an entirely-procedural disposition of the case, based on the Government's breach of certain evidentiary rules, which brings us right back to the main point I was making, i.e. the very real possibility that the same thing can easily happen with the five former Gitmo inmates.I'm sure there are a shit-ton of procedural motions gaining tsunami proportions even as we speak.
I'm sure there are a shit-ton of procedural motions gaining tsunami proportions even as we speak.
My comments on self-defense were addressed to the content of Pete's post, not the opinion itself. The reason you discuss for dismissal still boils down to an entirely-procedural disposition of the case, based on the Government's breach of certain evidentiary rules, which brings us right back to the main point I was making, i.e. the very real possibility that the same thing can easily happen with the five former Gitmo inmates.
The government has also acknowledged that its investigators, prosecutors and key witnesses were exposed to (and, indeed, aggressively sought out) many of the statements given by the defendants to State Department investigators. Under the binding precedent of the Supreme Court in Kastigar v. United States, 406 U.S. 441 (1971) and this Circuit in United States v. North, 910 F.2d 843 (D.C. Cir. 1990), the burden fell to the government to prove that it made no use whatsoever of these immunized statements or that any such use was harmless beyond any reasonable doubt. (Pg. 2)
From this extensive presentation of evidence and argument, the following conclusions ineluctably emerge. In their zeal to bring charges against the defendant in this case, the prosecutors and investigators aggressively sought out statements the defendants had been compelled to make to government investigators in the immediate aftermath of the shooting and in the subsequent investigation. In so doing, the government’s trial team repeatedly disregarded the warnings of experienced, senior prosecutors, assigned to the case specifically to advise the trial team on Garrity and Kastigar issues, that this course of action threatened the viability of the prosecution. The government used the defendants’ compelled statements to guide its charging decisions, to formulate its theory of the case, to develop investigatory leads and, ultimately, to obtain the indictment in this case. The government’s key witnesses immersed themselves in the defendants’ compelled statements, and the evidence adduced at the Kastigar hearing plainly demonstrated that these compelled statements shaped portions of the witnesses’ testimony to the indicting grand jury.2 The explanations offered by the prosecutors and investigators in an= attempt to justify their actions and persuade the court that they did not use the defendants’ compelled testimony were all too often contradictory, unbelievable and lacking in credibility. (Pgs. 2 & 3)
The second grand jury was convened in late November 2008. Agent Powell, the sole live witness presented to the second grand jury, summarized evidence from Iraqi witnesses, as well as information from cooperating witness Ridgeway, who by this time had entered a guilty plea, and summarized portions of the prior grand jury testimony of Frost, Murphy and Mealy. See generally Govt’s Ex. 1. In addition, the prosecutors presented the second grand jury with redacted transcripts of the prior grand jury testimony of Frost, Murphy and Mealy, along with summaries prepared by the prosecutors of the evidence against each defendant. See generally id. By proceeding in this fashion, the prosecutors withheld from the second grand jury substantial exculpatory evidence that had been presented to the first grand jury. For instance, Raven 23 team members Thomas Vargas, Jeremy Skinner, Daniel Childers and Edward Randall all testified before the first grand jury that the Raven 23 convoy responded to incoming fire. Vargas testified before the first grand jury that approximately “five seconds after we pulled into our positions, we started taking fire†and that he “could hear AK-47 fire†and “immediately saw two insurgents.†Hr’g Tr., Nov. 3, 2009 a.m. at 10. Skinner likewise testified that he heard gunfire and saw “two distinct separate muzzle flashes†fired by insurgents at the Raven 23 convoy. Id. at 12. Childers testified that he heard incoming gunfire coming from his seven to eight o’clock position. Id. at 17. And Randall testified that the Raven 23 convoy took fire from the south and southwest and that he saw a round impact the side of one of the vehicles. Id. at 18- Case 1:08-cr-00360-RMU Document 217 Filed 12/31/09 Page 22 of 90
19. Although Malis acknowledged that this testimony corroborated the defendants’ self-defense theory, none of this testimony was presented to the second grand jury. Id. at 10-19. Indeed, Malis testified that he chose not to present the testimony of these witnesses to the second grand jury because the testimony indicated that the witnesses were “hostile†to the prosecution. Hr’g Tr., Nov. 2, 2009 a.m. at 22. DOJ guidelines require prosecutors to present exculpatory evidence to the grand jury. United States Attorneys’ Manual § 9-11.233 (stating that “t is the policy of the Department of Justice . . . that when a prosecutor conducting a grand jury inquiry is personally aware of substantial evidence that directly negates the guilt of a subject of the investigation, the prosecutor must present or otherwise disclose such evidence to the grand jury before seeking an indictment against such a personâ€).
The government also redacted exculpatory portions of the testimony of Frost, Murphy and Mealy. (Pgs. 22 & 23)
Without question, the testimony of Frost, Murphy and Mealy played a critical role in the government’s presentations to the first and second grand juries. These witnesses identified which members of the Raven 23 convoy were the shooters, provided detailed accounts of the events that occurred at Nisur Square and testified regarding the absence of any threat justifying the defendants’ actions. See generally GJ Exs. 89-94. Among all of the Raven 23 team members who testified at the first grand jury, the prosecutors chose to rely solely on the testimony of Frost, Murphy and Mealy to obtain the indictment from the second grand jury. See generally id.
It is equally clear that by the time they testified at the first grand jury, Frost and Murphy had been thoroughly immersed in the defendants’ compelled Garrity statements.38 Media reports alluding to the statements made to DSS investigators began to appear almost immediately after the incident, see, e.g., Defs.’ Media Exs. 23, 28, and excerpts from the defendants’ written statements began to appear shortly thereafter, see, e.g., Defs.’ Media Exs. 2, 6, 7, 13, 14, 23. Frost indicated that in the days following the shooting, he read numerous news reports on the Internet regarding the events at Nisur Square. Defs.’ Frost Ex. 6 at 1. Frost and Murphy both set up “Google News†alerts, through which they were e-mailed multiple news articles each day regarding the Nisur Square incident. Hr’g Tr., Oct. 21, 2009 p.m. at 26-27; Hr’g Tr., Oct. 14, 2009 p.m. at 27. Frost and Murphy both acknowledged reading the September 18 written statements of defendants Slatten and Slough, and Murphy further acknowledged reading the written statement of defendant Ball as well, all of which had been posted on the Internet. Hr’g Tr., Oct. 21, 2009 p.m. at 25-26; Hr’g Tr., Oct. 14, 2009 p.m. at 6, 74-75, 88-89. And on October 2, 2007, Frost and Murphy received an e-mail from Raven 23 team member Edward Randall containing a link to an ABC News televised report, which purported to be based on the written statements of all nineteen Raven 23 members and quoted extensively from several statements, including Slough’s. See Defs.’ Murphy Ex. 8; Hr’g Tr., Oct. 14, 2009 p.m. at 7. Neither Frost nor Murphy recalled ever being warned by the government’s trial team to avoid exposure to news coverage about the incident or to the sworn statements given by the defendants. Hr’g Tr., Oct. 14, 2009 p.m. at 64; Hr’g Tr., Oct. 21, 2009 p.m. at 27.(Pgs 51 & 52)
It is clear from this evidence that beginning in the first months of the investigation and throughout its duration, the trial team aggressively sought out and obtained the substance not only of the defendants’ September 16 interview statements, but also of the defendants’ subsequent statements to the DSS investigators, which the government has never disputed were compelled and tainted. The trial team members immersed themselves in the defendants’ compelled statements long before obtaining the indictment in December 2008. (Pg. 81)
In this case, by contrast, it is abundantly clear that the defendants’ compelled statements did have a value to the prosecution. Defendants Slough, Slatten, Heard and Ball acknowledged having fired their weapons and specified the types of weapons they had used, the number of shots they had fired and the directions in which they had fired. See supra Part II.A.2. All of the defendants specified in great detail the locations of the various insurgent threats they had allegedly seen and specified the directions from which they had purportedly taken fire. See id. Agent Patarini testified that he may have used the information he obtained from the defendants’ statements to DSS investigators in questioning witnesses.
In the face of the unrefuted evidence that the trial team risked the entire prosecution in aggressively seeking out the defendants’ compelled statements, which provided a wealth of valuable information, the government asks this court to credit the conclusory assertions of Kohl and the rest of the trial team that they made no use of these statements to further the prosecution. Govt’s Mem. at 14, 41. The government asks too much.
It simply defies common sense that the prosecution would go to such incredible lengths to obtain the defendants’ compelled statements, flouting the advice of the taint team and taking actions that even Kohl acknowledged came “close to the line,†and then make no use whatsoever of the fruits of their efforts.
These facts do not describe a case of fleeting exposure late in the game that may have tangentially affected the trial team’s thought processes. See North I, 910 F.2d at 859. Rather, they reveal that the trial team went to great lengths and knowingly took great risks, at the early stages of the prosecution, to obtain statements that provided a wealth of information valuable to the prosecution. Given the prosecution’s early, ongoing and intentional immersion in the defendants’ compelled statements, the government bore the burden of demonstrating that it made no significant nonevidentiary use of the defendants’ statements. (Pgs. 84 & 85)
The evidence strongly indicates that the physical search conducted by DSS investigators was guided by the defendants’ compelled statements. On September 20, 2007, DSS investigators interviewed the four defendants who had acknowledged firing their weapons to focus on “the specific details†of the written accounts they had given on September 18, 2007. See Defs.’ Carpenter Ex. 9. Agent Farrington testified that Agent Carpenter directed them to obtain these “specific details†to assist the DSS agents in the physical search of the Nisur Square traffic circle conducted later that day.65 Hr’g Tr., Oct. 16, 2009 p.m. at 22-23. Agent Motley informed the trial team that the physical search of the Nisur Square area was based on the defendants’ oral statements to investigators on September 20, 2007, and was designed to test the accounts given by the defendants. Hr’g Tr., Oct. 16, 2009 a.m. at 73. And although Agent Carpenter testified that there were no areas of Nisur Square that his agents would not have searched but for the information provided in the September 16, 2007 interviews ... (Pgs. 86 & 87)The question before the court was whether the government's case had been tainted by use of immunized compelled statements, and that was the focus of the court's decision. Thus, references to exculpatory evidence and the withholding thereof are somewhat incidental to the issue decided. The decision, as the quotes above indicate, shows how the entire process - from investigations through the indictment hearings - was tainted and corrupted by use of the immunized compelled statements. This was no abstruse nit-picking technicality. It was pervasive prosecutorial misconduct that should be prosecuted.
The issue of use of compelled, immunized statements is a legitimate one and correctly decided. Much of the rest of it is kitchen sink material that is thrown in to discourage the prosecution from whining about it but there are a lot of holes in it, suffice to say it's just dicta and no matter how arguable it may be it ultimately doesn't matter.
FWIW it is almost never fruitful for the Government to appeal a dispositive ruling like this, the DOJ's talk about possibly appealing is 99% CYA and BS and anyone sane over there knows it. It's always possible Holder will try it anyway out of sheer bloody-mindedness, and sacrificially immolate some DOJ career attorneys in the process, though.
It's always possible Holder will try it anyway out of sheer bloody-mindedness, and sacrificially immolate some DOJ career attorneys in the process, though.Justice and sensibility haven't been things for which Holder has been noteworthy, IMO. OTOH, hypo-vehiculation has been a particular specialty of the Obama Campaign and Administration.
Justice and sensibility haven't been things for which Holder has been noteworthy, IMO. OTOH, hypo-vehiculation has been a particular specialty of the Obama Campaign and Administration.
:II:
At least one of the three branches of government still seems capable of occasional exercises of common sense.