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The new trial of a former Blackwater security guard found guilty of first-degree murder in 2014 resulted in a Hungarian jury that dealt a blow to the long-running Justice Ministry's shooting of unarmed civilians in 2007.
United States District Judge Royce C. Lamberth, District, declared a lawsuit inadmissible after a jury of seven women and five men declared that he was stuck on the 16th day of deliberations in the Nicholas A. Slatten case. Slatten, 34, was charged with firing the first machine gun and grenade fire that killed or wounded 31 civilians in an arrested air traffic on Nisour Square in Baghdad on 16 September 2007.
This is the second time Slatten has been on trial for murder in the shooting that has outraged diplomatic and humanitarian circles and is calling for an end to the US government's use of private military forces.
Slatten will remain in detention until 14 September, when deputy prosecutor Fernando Campoamor-Sanchez said that prosecutors would return to the Lamberth and Slatten defense team to say whether the government intended to try again.
Charges were laid for the first time against six Blackwater employees in 2008 and, in the next ten years, their cases were reviewed by trial and appeal courts.
Shots of Iraqi survivors and relatives of victims testified in person in US courts over the years of protracted proceedings, including 30 in 2014, representing the largest number of foreign witnesses who traveled to the United States for a criminal trial .
The jury of the new trial had indicated in a note to the judge last week that he was deadlocked and asked, "Please, warn." The judge sent them home for the weekend and asked them to try again. reach a verdict when they returned to court on Tuesday.
The members of Slatten's family and his lawyers refused to comment after the trial.
"I congratulate you for your efforts," Lamberth said. "You have striven to be good jurors," adding that he knew that they were disappointed at not being able to make a unanimous decision, like the parties involved.
He also asked if juries wished to stay and answer questions from Slatten's lawyers and federal prosecutors about their deliberations, which according to the judge could help determine if a third trial will take place. All but one juror seemed to take the offers, and snuggles against lawyers behind closed doors for an hour after Lamberth's decision.
The jurors refused to speak to a journalist.
In 2014, a Washington jury found Slatten guilty of murder and three other guards at Blackwater Worldwide who committed 30 manslaughters and attempted homicide. The team was part of a convoy protecting State Department personnel,
Last August, a federal court of appeal ordered a new trial for Slatten, claiming that he should have been tried separately from a 38-year-old co-accused, Paul A. Slough. turns in the incident.
Slatten's lawyer, Dane Butswinkas, asked the jurors to focus on Slough's statements, saying: [Slough’s] incentive to compensate that he shot at the driver? . . . How can this not be a reasonable doubt?
Slatten, of Sparta, Tenn., Was imprisoned in Sumterville, Florida, serving a life sentence, before being transferred to Virginia and the district for retrial.
Prosecutors still face resentment from three other convicted defendants, Slough of Keller, Texas, Evan S. Liberty, 36, of Rochester, NH, and Dustin L. Heard, 37, of Maryville, Tennessee. resentment until late September, after the new trial of Slatten.
The formation of three judges of the US Court of Appeals for the Washington Circuit, which overturned Slatten's conviction last year, also canceled the 30-year terms granted to the defendants in 2014, saying that sentences violated a constitutional prohibition.
[Four Blackwater guards sentenced in Iraq shootings of 31 unarmed civilians]
The three men were sentenced to a maximum of two times for manslaughter after being convicted of firearms while committing a crime, a harsher sentence that targeted mainly gang members and had never been used by the US government.
In a 2-to-1 decision, the panel said it did not intend to downplay the carnage of men, saying "their bad judgments have resulted in the deaths of many innocent people," but called for more "nuanced" sanctions based on everyone's mischief rather than the "sledgehammer" treatment.
[Four Blackwater guards found guilty in 2007 Iraq shootings of 31 unarmed civilians]
In the long history of the Blackwater charge, a guard, Jeremy Ridgeway, pleaded guilty to manslaughter and testified against Slatten in both Slatten trials, although he also stated that Slough fired first . Prosecutors withdrew charges against another member of the Blackwater convoy, citing a lack of evidence.
A federal judge initially rejected the other indictments in 2009, claiming that prosecutors did not rely on statements by State Department wardens immediately after the shooting, saying their statements would not be used. before the courts.
[From 2010: Missteps, errors and miscommunication doomed Blackwater case]
Another panel of three DC Circuit judges overturned this decision in 2011, paving the way for prosecutors to obtain new indictments against Slatten and the other three.
However, prosecutors took so long to accuse Slatten that the statutory time limit for bringing a manslaughter charge had expired, an error declared by a lower court.
The Ministry of Justice responded by accusing Slatten, a former army sniper, of first degree murder, who has no limitation period, but demands a higher burden of proof, including premeditation. .
Slatten's defense also gained momentum when a key government witness – Jimmy Watson, the convoy leader of four vehicles sitting next to Slatten – withdrew from his strong and repeated testimony that he had heard Slatten first.
Watson, that Slatten's lawyers claimed to have suffered a brain injury in a diving accident while a Navy SEAL appeared "a bit like a shell of itself" on the stand at the new trial, acknowledged the Attorney T. Patrick Martin. "And speaking in a deaf tone and cadence.
But Martin asked the jurors to remember the "Watson 2013", which without hesitation and "clear as a bell" said seven times – at the jury trial – that he had heard Slatten shoot first, then Slough .
"It was not Mr. Watson of 2013 … . You saw a different man here, and he was unhappy, "Martin said in the government's pleadings. "But the 2013 Watson gives you the testimony you need" to find Slatten guilty.
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