Legal Commentary

Blackwater Guards Surrender in Utah

By Jeralyn

Update: DOJ announcement here. A sixth defendant, Jeremy Ridgeway pleaded guilty to these charges (pdf) brought by Information rather than Indictment. The factual basis for his plea is here (pdf).

Five Blackwater guards charged in federal court in Washington with manslaughter and use of a machine gun a crime of violence -- the killing of Iraqis -- surrendered today in Utah.

Seventeen Iraqis were killed in the September 2007 shooting. Witnesses said the heavily armed U.S. contractors opened fire unprovoked, killing innocent motorists and children at a crowded intersection. Blackwater, the largest security contractor in Iraq, says its guards were ambushed by insurgents while responding to a car bombing.

Why Utah? For one thing, Paul Cassell, who lives in Utah is on the defense team. [More...]

"We think it's pure and simple a case of self-defense," Paul Cassell, a Utah attorney on the defense team, said Monday as the guards were being booked. "Tragically people did die."

Cassell wants the trial moved there. Cassell? What a poor choice. I guess they wanted a right-winger. They got one. As I wrote here when he resigned from the federal bench:

His agenda has always been promoting victims' rights over those of defendants, eviscerating Miranda rights and pushing the death penalty, making light of false confessions and wrongful convictions.

Cassell sees the Blackwater guards as victims. It figures. I can't wait to see him change his tune yet again and argue for a non-guideline sentence if they get convicted.

[Updated AP article here.]

Full post as published by TalkLeft on December 08, 2008 (boomark / email).