United States v. Slatten

Facts

On September 16, 2007, a car bomb exploded in Baghdad near a United States diplomat who was under the protection of Blackwater, a private security firm under contract with the State Department. Ds were members of Blackwater's Raven 23 team, which was sent to provide secondary support in the effort to evacuate the diplomat. Shift leader Jimmy Watson ignored his orders and directed the team to Nisur Square, a traffic circle in downtown Baghdad that Watson intended to 'lockdown.' A car bomb had exploded in Nisur Square earlier that year, in response to which Iraqi security had been dramatically increased, with multiple checkpoints at the Square's entrances for potential threats. The Raven 23 convoy of four armored vehicles, came to a stop at the south end of the Square, and together with Iraqi police, they brought all traffic to a halt. Two or three minutes later, witnesses heard the 'pops' of shots being fired, and a woman screaming for her son. The car that had been hit, a white Kia sedan, had been flagged days earlier by a Blackwater intelligence analyst as a type that might be used as a car bomb. The Kia then rolled forward and lightly bumped the vehicle in front of it. The driver's side of the Kia windshield had a hole in it and was splattered with blood. Iraqi police officers approached the Kia on either side, and they saw the driver's face full of blood, with a bullet wound in the middle of his forehead. One turned back to the convoy, waving his hands to indicate the shooting should stop, while the other made similar gestures as he tried to open the driver's door. The vehicle in front of the Kia moved away, causing the Kia to roll forward again. Heavy gunfire erupted from the Raven 23 convoy into the Kia, and the Iraqi officers took cover behind their nearby kiosk. Multiple grenades were fired at the Kia, causing it to catch fire. The Kia passenger was shot and killed. Indiscriminate shooting from the convoy then continued past the Kia, to the south of the Square. Victims were hit. A Raven 23 member radioed that they were taking incoming fire, but others could not locate any such threat. One of the Raven 23 vehicles had been disabled and needed to be hooked up to another vehicle to be towed. During the hook-up, a member of the Raven 23 convoy saw an Iraqi shot in the stomach while his hands were up, by an unidentified Blackwater guard who had exited his vehicle. Once the hook-up was complete, the Raven 23 convoy began moving slowly around the circle and north out of the Square, where isolated shootings continued both to the west and north. By the time the convoy finally exited the Square, at least thirty-one Iraqi civilians had been killed or wounded. The State Department conducted mandatory de-briefing interviews. Because the testimony of certain witnesses before the grand jury relied on those statements, the district court dismissed the case as tainted as to all defendants. On remand, the government used a new prosecutorial team and convened a new grand jury, which returned indictments against Ds for voluntary manslaughter, attempted manslaughter, and using and discharging a firearm in relation to a crime of violence. Slatten (D) moved to dismiss the charges against him as time-barred, which this Court ultimately granted by writ of mandamus. The government thereafter obtained an indictment charging Slatten (D) with first-degree murder. The jury returned guilty verdicts on all counts except three. The district court sentenced Slatten (D) to life imprisonment, and it sentenced Slough, Liberty, and Heard to the mandatory term of imprisonment of thirty years for their convictions under 18 U.S.C. § 924(c), plus one day on all of the remaining counts. Slatten (D) appealed in part because of the denial of his Rule 14 motion to sever his trial from that of a co-defendant finding the co-defendant's admissions constituted inadmissible hearsay.

Issues

Rule of Law

Holding and Decision

Legal Analysis

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