Blackwater Guard's 2nd Murder Trial Ends Without A Verdict

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The second murder trial of Nicholas Slatten, the former Blackwater contractor accused of firing the first shots in a shooting that killed more than a dozen unarmed civilians, has ended in a mistrial.

After weeks of deliberations, the jury could not reach a unanimous verdict, and U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth declared a mistrial on Wednesday.

The future of the case is unclear; attorneys for both sides will meet Sept. 14 to discuss the options, including the possibility of a third trial.

Bill Miller, a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's Office in Washington, D.C., told NPR via email that the office "is reviewing the matter and has no further comment at this time."

Blackwater USA, a now-notorious private security contractor, was hired by the U.S. State Department to protect diplomats during the Iraq War. In September 2007, Blackwater guards opened fire on Baghdad's Nisour Square, killing and injuring unarmed civilians.

Slatten was one of four guards who were found guilty in connection to that shooting. They were first charged in 2008, but that case was thrown out. The case was revived in 2013, and the next year, the men were convicted after marathon jury deliberations. Slatten was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison, while the three other guards were convicted of manslaughter and attempted manslaughter.

But last year, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit threw out Slatten's conviction and said he should get a new trial.

NPR's Scott Neuman reported at the time:

"The judges said that Slatten, who was the only defendant charged with murder, should have been tried separately and that a new trial would allow him to introduce evidence that he wasn't the first to open fire. "Separately, the judges also ordered the resentencing of Slatten's former Blackwater colleagues Paul Slough, Dustin Heard and Evan Liberty, who had each been serving 30 years on manslaughter and weapons charges. In a split ruling, the judges found the length of those sentences constituted "cruel and unusual punishment."

The resentencing of the other three Blackwater guards had been postponed until after Slatten's case was resolved.

Blackwater, which was founded by Education Secretary Betsy DeVos' brother Erik Prince, was sold after its name became synonymous with military atrocities and misconduct in Iraq.

Initially renamed Xe Services, the company is now called Academi.</s>The second murder trial of a former Blackwater security guard over the 2007 killing of a civilian in Baghdad was ruled a mistrial Wednesday, a year after his first conviction was thrown out.

Washington federal judge Royce Lamberth declared a mistrial in the case of Nicholas Slatten, 34, after a jury reported last week they were at an impasse and could not reach a unanimous verdict.

Slatten was one of four armed guards for the former US security contractor Blackwater Worldwide who were found guilty in 2014 of murder for the notorious killings in Baghdad's Nisour Square.

While escorting a diplomatic convoy on September 16, 2007, they opened fire with sniper rifles, machine guns and grenade launchers, allegedly without provocation, in the bustling square, leaving at least 14 civilians dead and at least 17 wounded. The Iraqi government says the toll was higher.

The shooting deepened the resentment of Americans in Iraq four years after US forces toppled dictator Saddam Hussein, and raised questions about the expanded use of armed contract guards by the US government.

Slatten was originally sentenced in 2015 to life in prison as the alleged first person to have opened fire.

The three others were given 30 year prison sentences, although Lamberth at the time of sentencing said that: "It's clear these fine young men just panicked."

An appeals court, accepting later evidence that another guard was the first to fire, overturned Slatten's guilty verdict and ordered a new trial for him alone.

He faced one charge of first degree murder of a single Iraqi, Ahmed Haithem Ahmed al Rubia'y.

A spokesman for the court said federal prosecutors were reviewing the case. They can choose to ask for a new trial, or decide not to pursue it further.</s>The retrial of a Blackwater security guard alleged to have participated in a 2007 massacre of unarmed Iraqi civilians ended Wednesday in a hung jury.

U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth declared a mistrial after the jury said it remained deadlocked after more than two weeks of deliberations in the case of Nicholas A. Slatten.

Slatten was accused of firing the first shots of a one-sided firefight on Sept. 16, 2007, in Baghdad's Nisour Square. Armed Blackwater personnel fired machine guns and threw grenades into traffic, killing or injuring 31 people.

Since that time, the U.S. Justice Department has been trying to hold the Blackwater employees involved in the incident responsible.

In 2014, Slatten was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison. Last August, a federal appeals court threw out that conviction and ordered a new trial.</s>WASHINGTON – The retrial of a former Blackwater Worldwide security guard accused of instigating a mass shooting in Iraq a decade ago has ended in a hung jury.

U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth declared a mistrial on Wednesday after jurors said they were unable to reach a verdict after 16 days of deliberations on a murder charge against Nick Slatten, 34, of Sparta, Tenn.

It was not immediately clear whether prosecutors would attempt to retry the case. The U.S. attorney's office said it is reviewing the case and has no further comment at this time.

Slatten was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison in 2014 for his role in the 2007 shooting in Baghdad’s Nisour Square. Fourteen unarmed Iraqi civilians were killed and 17 others, including women and children, were wounded during the attack, which happened during the war between Iraq and a U.S.-led coalition.

A federal appeals court threw out that conviction last year and ordered Slatten be given a new trial.

Former Blackwater Worldwide guard Nicholas Slatten leaving federal court in Washington in June 2014. He was convicted Oct. 22, 2014, of murder in the 2007 shooting that killed 14 Iraqis in Baghdad. Three co-defendants were found guilty of manslaughter and other charges..

In June, Slatten again went on trial in U.S. District Court in Washington for his role in the shooting. The trial lasted five weeks and included testimony from his fellow guards and Iraqis who survived the attack.

Government prosecutors alleged during the retrial that Slatten, without provocation, fired the first shots in the melee, instigating a deadly firefight that became one of the flashpoints in relations between the U.S. and Baghdad and raised questions about the U.S. government's use of private contractors during the war.

But Slatten’s attorneys argued that he was innocent and pointed to the confession of another guard who said he, not Slatten, fired the opening shots.

During closing arguments, defense attorney Dane Butswinkas blasted the government’s case as nothing more than “guesswork, speculation and conjecture.” He complained the government deliberately withheld evidence that raised doubts about Slatten’s guilt and charged that other critical evidence is missing, including three or four minutes of crime-scene footage shot by a drone.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Patrick Martin countered that the government had turned over all of the evidence that it had at its disposal.

Prosecutors also argued that Slatten had fired at other at innocent targets in hopes of starting a firefight, that he harbored a deep-seated hatred of Iraqis and that he had vowed revenge against them in retaliation for the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington on Sept. 11, 2001.

The deadly rampage in which Slatten was charged already has been the subject of investigations by the military, a congressional panel, the FBI and others. Yet, 11 years later, details of what happened that day remain in dispute.

Slatten and three other guards — Dustin Heard of Maryville, Tenn., Paul Slough of Keller, Texas, and Evan Liberty of Rochester, N.H. — were all former armed services members working as private security guards for Blackwater, now known as Academi. The guards’ Raven 23 security team was under contract by the State Department.

On Sept. 16, 2007, their convoy traveled to a crowded traffic circle in downtown Baghdad as part of the effort to evacuate a U.S. diplomat.

At some point, the guards opened fire with machine guns and grenade launchers. They say the shooting started only after a white Kia sedan lurched out of stopped traffic and approached their four armored vehicles. The men had received intelligence reports that a white Kia might be used as a car bomb, so they feared they were under attack.

No evidence of a bomb was ever found.

The government argued the guards opened fire without provocation on innocent Iraqis and used excessive force. Slatten, prosecutors contended, fired the first shots, killing the driver of the Kia, a young, unarmed Iraqi medical student named Ahmed Haithem Ahmed Al Rubia’y. The student’s mother, a physician who was seated beside him in the car, also was killed.

But in statements to investigators, Slough said that he fired the first shots, not Slatten. The statements were never presented to the jury during Slatten’s trial. He was convicted of first-degree murder in 2014 and sentenced to life in prison.

Last August, the U.S. District Court of Appeals in Washington overturned Slatten’s conviction and ordered a new trial, saying a lower court had erred in not allowing him to be tried separately from his co-defendants. The government’s case hinged on Slatten firing the first shots, the appeals court said, and Slatten should have been allowed to introduce evidence that it was Slough who fired the initial shots.

During closing arguments, government attorneys contended Slough’s statements had been inconsistent. He initially denied to investigators that he had opened fire, then later recanted and claimed he fired the first shots, they said.

More: Former Blackwater security guard Nick Slatten: 'I am a POW in my own country'

More: Wife of convicted Blackwater security guard still hoping for husband's release from prison</s>The retrial of a Blackwater security guard convicted of first-degree murder in 2014 resulted in a hung jury Wednesday, dealing a blow to the Justice Department’s long pursuit of accountability for a 2007 shooting of unarmed civilians that drew international condemnation during the Iraq War.

U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth of the District of Columbia declared a mistrial after a jury of seven women and five men said it was deadlocked on the 16th day of deliberations in the case of Nicholas A. Slatten. Slatten, 34, was accused of unleashing the first shots that set off machine gun and grenade fire that killed or injured 31 civilians in stopped traffic at Baghdad’s Nisour Square on Sept. 16, 2007.

Charges were first brought against six Blackwater employees in 2008 and over the next decade their cases careered among trial and appeals courts.

It was the second time Slatten faced trial for murder in the shooting rampage that outraged diplomatic and humanitarian circles and sparked calls to end the U.S. government’s use of private military forces.

The retrial jury had indicated in a note last week to the judge that it was at an impasse and asked “please advise.” The judge sent them home for the weekend and asked them to try again to reach a verdict when they returned to court Tuesday.

A jury in Washington, D.C., in October 2014 convicted Slatten of murder and three fellow Blackwater Worldwide guards of 30 counts of manslaughter and attempted manslaughter. The team was part of a convoy protecting State Department personnel.

A federal appeals court last August ordered a new trial for Slatten, saying he should have been tried separately from a co-defendant, Paul A. Slough, 38, who told investigators days after the shootings that he, not Slatten, fired the first rounds in the incident.

Slatten, of Sparta, Tennessee, had been imprisoned in Sumterville, Florida, serving a mandatory life sentence, before being moved to Virginia and the District of Columbia for retrial.

Prosecutors still face resentencings of three other convicted defendants, Slough, of Keller, Texas, Evan S. Liberty, 36, of Rochester, New Hampshire., and Dustin L. Heard, 37, of Maryville, Tennessee.

The three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit that vacated Slatten’s conviction last year also set aside the 30-year terms handed to the defendants in 2014 , saying the sentences violated a constitutional prohibition against “cruel and unusual punishment.”

The three men received twice the maximum punishment for manslaughter alone after being convicted of using military firearms while committing a felony, an enhanced penalty that was primarily aimed at gang members and had never been used against security contractors given military weapons by the U.S. government.

In a 2-to-1 ruling, the panel said it did not intend to minimize the carnage attributable to the men, saying “their poor judgments resulted in the deaths of many innocent people,” but called for more “nuanced” penalties based on each’s wrongdoing rather than “sledgehammer” treatment.

Lamberth, the judge in both trials, had deferred resentencing until the outcome of Slatten’s retrial.

During the long history of the Blackwater prosecution one guard, Jeremy Ridgeway, pleaded guilty to manslaughter and testified against Slatten in both of Slatten’s trials, although he also said he believed Slough fired first. Prosecutors withdrew charges against one other Blackwater convoy member, citing a lack of evidence.

A federal judge initially threw out the other indictments in 2009, saying prosecutors improperly relied on statements the guards have given State Department investigators immediately after the shooting believing their statements would not be used in court.

Another three-judge panel of the D.C. Circuit reversed that ruling in 2011, clearing the way for prosecutors to obtain fresh indictments against Slatten and the three others.

However, prosecutors took so long to charge Slatten that the statutory time limit for bringing a manslaughter charge had expired, an error the appeals court panel contributed to an errant ruling, a court found.

The Justice Department responded by charging Slatten, a former Army sniper, with first-degree murder, which has no statute of limitations, but required a higher burden of proof, including premeditation, which prosecutors labored this summer to meet.

Slatten’s defense also got a new boost when a key government witness – Jimmy Watson, the leader of the four-vehicle convoy who was seated next to Slatten – retreated from his previously strong, repeated testimony that he had heard Slatten fire first.

Watson, whom Slatten’s attorneys said suffered a brain injury in a diving accident while a Navy SEAL, appeared “a bit of a shell of himself” on the stand in the retrial, lead prosecutor Patrick Martin acknowledged, “looking off into the distance” and speaking in a muted tone and cadence.
• Oakland to sue Raiders over Las Vegas move; team could leave city early
• East Bay man gets 2 years for ‘misleading’ concert promoters about Red Hot Chili Peppers But Martin asked jurors to remember “the 2013 Watson,” who without hesitation and “clear as a bell” said seven times– in recorded grand jury testimony that was played at the retrial–that he heard Slatten fire first, then Slough.

“He was not the Mr. Watson of 2013 . . . You saw a different man up here, and that was unfortunate,” Martin said in the government’s closing arguments. “But the 2013 Watson gives you the testimony you need” to find Slatten guilty.</s>A mistrial was declared Wednesday in the retrial of a former Blackwater security guard convicted of murder in 2014 for his role in a mass shooting of unarmed Iraqi civilians that touched off an international firestorm.

Nicholas Slatten, 34, of Sparta, Tenn., went on trial for a second time in June, accused of instigating the killing of 14 unarmed Iraqi civilians and the wounding of 17 others, including women and children in 2007 near Baghdad’s Nisour Square.

The latest decision was a setback for the Justice Department, which had long sought to hold Slatten and five other employees of the military contracting firm accountable for the incident.

Slatten, a former Army sniper, allegedly fired the initial shots, spurring a fusillade of machine gun and grenade fire. The Justice Department first charged him and five others in 2008.

Slatten’s original sentence of life in prison for first-degree murder was overturned in 2017 by the U.S. Court of Appeals of the District of Columbia Circuit after they ruled a lower court had erred by not allowing him to be tried separately from his three co-defendants in 2014.

But jurors in the subsequent retrial were deadlocked on the 16th day of deliberations. Jurors had indicated in a note to the judge last week that it had reached an impasse, the Washington Post reported. They had been sent home for the weekend and asked to return to court Tuesday.

This story is developing. Check back for updates</s>Taylor Wolff will spend at least the next 10 years in prison for the second-degree murder of James Carlson.

Carlson disappeared in May 2008 from his Watrous, Sask., home. His body has never been found, but his car was found on a rural property near Rosthern two years later.

READ MORE: Taylor Wolff found guilty of second-degree murder in James Carlson’s death

RCMP say there was evidence found in a search of Carlson’s home that proved he was killed and charged Wolff with second-degree murder eight years later.

He was found guilty of second-degree murder on Aug. 10.

Wolff was sentenced Wednesday to life in prison with no chance of parole for 10 years.</s>The retrial of a Blackwater security guard convicted of first-degree murder in 2014 resulted in a hung jury Wednesday, dealing a blow to the Justice Department's long pursuit of accountability for a 2007 shooting of unarmed civilians that drew international condemnation during the Iraq War.

U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth of the District of Columbia declared a mistrial after a jury of seven women and five men said it was deadlocked on the 16th day of deliberations in the case of Nicholas Slatten. Slatten, 34, was accused of unleashing the first shots that set off machine gun and grenade fire that killed or injured 31 civilians in stopped traffic at Baghdad's Nisour Square on Sept. 16, 2007.

It was the second time Slatten faced trial for murder in the shooting rampage that outraged diplomatic and humanitarian circles and sparked calls to end the U.S. government's use of private military forces.

Slatten will remain detained until at least Sept. 14 when assistant U.S. Attorney Fernando Campoamor-Sanchez said prosecutors will come back to Lamberth and Slatten's defense team to say if the government intends to try him again.

Charges were first brought against six Blackwater employees in 2008 and over the next decade their cases careered among trial and appeals courts.

Iraqi shooting survivors and relatives of the victims testified in person in American courts over the years of extended proceedings, including 30 in 2014 who represented the largest number of foreign witnesses to have traveled to the United States for a criminal trial, prosecutors said at the time.

The retrial jury had indicated in a note last week to the judge that it was at an impasse and asked "please advise." The judge sent them home for the weekend and asked them to try again to reach a verdict when they returned to court Tuesday.

Slatten's family members and his attorneys declined to comment after the mistrial was declared.

"I commend you for your efforts," Lamberth said. "You strove to be good jurors," adding that he knew that they were disappointed at not being able to come to a unanimous decision, as were the parties in the case.

He also asked if any jurors would like to stay and answer questions from attorneys for Slatten and federal prosecutors about their deliberations, which the judge said could help determine if there is a third trial. All but one of the jurors appeared to takeup the offer and huddling with attorneys behind closed doors for an hour after Lamberth's ruling.

The jurors left publicly declining to talk to a reporter.

A jury in Washington in October 2014 convicted Slatten of murder and three fellow Blackwater Worldwide guards of 30 counts of manslaughter and attempted manslaughter. The team was part of a convoy protecting State Department personnel,

But a federal appeals court last August ordered a new trial for Slatten, saying he should have been tried separately from a co-defendant, Paul A. Slough, 38, who told investigators days after the shootings that he, not Slatten, fired the first rounds in the incident.

Slatten, of Sparta, Tenn., had been imprisoned in Sumterville, Fla., serving a mandatory life sentence, before being moved to Virginia and the District of Columbia for retrial.

Prosecutors still face resentencings of three other convicted defendants, Slough, of Keller, Texas, Evan S. Liberty, 36, of Rochester, N.H., and Dustin L. Heard, 37, of Maryville, Tenn. They had asked the court to delay the resentencing until late September, given Slatten's retrial.</s>WASHINGTON — The United States government’s decade-long attempt to prosecute four Blackwater contractors in the shooting of dozens of unarmed Iraqis in 2007, a case that became a symbol of American power run amok during the Iraq war, was dealt a blow on Wednesday when the retrial of one security guard ended in a hung jury.

The retrial of the former Blackwater contractor, Nicholas A. Slatten, was declared a mistrial by Judge Royce C. Lamberth of the Federal District Court for the District of Columbia after jurors deliberated for 16 days without reaching a verdict.

The deadlocked jury was the latest twist in the government’s saga to hold people to account for the shooting in Baghdad’s Nisour Square, in which at least 31 people were killed or wounded when contractors in armored trucks began firing machine guns and launching grenades into a busy traffic circle.

The firefight was one of the darkest moments of the Iraq war, along with the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal and the civilian massacre in Haditha. It caused strife between Washington and Baghdad, with the Bush White House fighting to keep the contractors from being prosecuted in Iraq and asking Iraqis to trust the American court system.
The second trial of U.S. citizen Nicholas Slatten, the former Blackwater (now Academi) employee who was found guilty in 2013 of first-degree murder in connection to the killing in 2007 of fourteen unarmed civilians on Baghdad's Nisour Square and sentenced to life in prison, ends in a mistrial.