Legal News

Will Legacy of Jose Luis Nazario Haunt Blackwater Prosecutors?

By Dan Slater

As expected, U.S. prosecutors unsealed a 35-count indictment yesterday against five former Blackwater guards, accusing the men — whose average age is about 26 — of recklessly opening fire in Baghdad’s Nisour Square last year. Prosecutors said manslaughter and attempted manslaughter, not murder or attempted murder, were the appropriate charges for a shooting in the fog of war.

They said the guards should never have opened fire because “a reasonable person” would have known that the white Kia sedan — which the guards allegedly opened fire on with assault rifles, a machine gun and a grenade launcher — did not pose a threat.

Here are stories from the WSJ, NYT and WaPo, which contains a link to the indictment. The guards’ attorneys are using a Web site, Raven23.com, to aid their defense. (The defendants were part of a 19-member Blackwater convoy that used the call sign Raven 23.)

The interesting legal questions in the case are legion — such as venue (the reputedly conservative Salt Lake City vs. D.C., which may be less sympathetic to the Iraq war and Blackwater?), and the proper reach of the of the Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act (are the guards “contractors” for purposes of the law?).

But even if prosecutors get their wish on the venue issue, and even if a judge agrees with their construction of the MEJA, they’ll almost certainly face an uphill battle if the case sees trial.

Remember Jose Luis Nazario? He was the former Marine who was charged, under the MEJA, with voluntary manslaughter for allegedly killing unarmed Iraqis. In August, a jury in Riverside, Calif., acquitted Nazario. As today’s WSJ report about Blackwater notes, prosecutors in the Nazario case faced jury skepticism. After the not-guilty verdict, jurors hugged Nazario and said they didn’t feel they “had any business” judging combat conduct.

Law Blog Readers: Will the Blackwater guards — military veterans — also benefit from reluctance by jurors to second-guess actions taken in a war zone?

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on December 09, 2008 (boomark / email).