Law Review

Daily Record, The (Baltimore), Aug 25, 2006 by Staff

Blackwater appeal fails

A wrongful death suit on behalf of four independent-contractor security guards who were ambushed and killed in Iraq will stay in North Carolina state court. Defendant Blackwater Security Consulting LLC, which provides security for food contractors to the armed services in Iraq, sought to remove the suit to U.S. District Court under the Defense Base Act, but a federal judge in Raleigh last year found she lacked subject matter jurisdiction. The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals yesterday dismissed Blackwater's appeal, finding that such remands generally are not appealable and that the limited exceptions to that rule did not apply. Stephen S. Helvenston, Mike R. Teague, Jerko Gerald Zovko and Wesey J.K. Batalona became lost in Fallujah and were killed, burned and dismembered by armed insurgents while escorting three trucks of supplies to the Camp Ridgeway Army base in March 2004. The suit alleges that Blackwater promised but failed to take precautionary measures, such as supplying its contractors with armored vehicles, weapons, maps and a navigator. Yesterday's opinion is available as RecordFax #6-0824-60 (28 pages).

Safavian fights on

Lawyers for former White House official David Safavian asked a U.S. judge to throw out his criminal conviction for lying about the help he gave disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff, or to order a new trial. Safavian didn't get proper warnings about the consequences of his statements to government investigators, attorney Albert Lambert told U.S. District Judge Paul Friedman. He also challenged the admission into evidence of various e-mails between Abramoff and Safavian. "I'm not sure there's anything you said in your briefs or in here that persuades me that I was wrong," Friedman replied. Safavian, 39, was found guilty in June on three counts of making false statements and one count of obstructing justice. Each count carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

Jessup firm wins biotech patent appeal

A Jessup company won a patent dispute against Purdue University in a federal appeals court last week, permitting it to continue producing tissue-graft biotechnology used to treat this year's Preakness favorite, Barbaro, after the horse broke its ankle just out of the starting gate.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit found ACell Inc. did not infringe on a patent held by the Indiana university's research wing, Purdue Research Foundation, and licensed to Cook Biotech Inc. Although similar, their biotechnology product patents are distinct when interpreted more narrowly than a district court in Indiana did.

Trying on fanny pack wasn't testimony

A federal judge should not have forced a defendant to testify in order to perform a physical demonstration at his trial on charges of being a felon in possession of a firearm, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has held. However, the error was harmless, the court concluded.

The decision affirms Frank Williams' conviction and sentence of more than 19 years in prison under the Armed Career Criminal Act.

To refute the testimony of a Baltimore City police officer that he was wearing a fanny pack when he was arrested, Williams performed a demonstration to show that the fanny pack belt was too short to close around his waist.

"Without attempting to provide an exhaustive definition of the term 'testimony' in this context, we think it's clear that a physical demonstration such as the one Williams proposed here is not 'testimony' and, accordingly, that such a demonstration does not subject its proponent to cross-examination under Rule 611(b)," Judge Karen J. Williams wrote for a unanimous three-judge panel.

Judge nixes suit to get drugs from Canada

An attempt by Montgomery County to help secure lower-cost prescription drugs from Canada for its residents and employees has been defeated in federal court.

In a lawsuit filed six months ago in U.S. District Court in Greenbelt, the county accused the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the Food and Drug Administration of arbitrarily denying a waiver the county needed to implement a proposed Canadian prescription drug importation program.

But U.S. District Judge Alexander Williams Jr. saw nothing arbitrary in denying a waiver here, where a key requirement of federal law has not yet been met by the government itself.

CSA affirms nurse's guilt in attack on ex-husband

A nurse who injected her ex-husband with a potentially deadly and untraceable paralytic drug was properly convicted of attempted murder, the Court of Special Appeals held this week.

In a case rivaling an Agatha Christie novel, the intermediate appellate court concluded that there was "classic circumstantial evidence" - as well as medical evidence - sufficient to prove that Ann Swanson Penny Hoard planned the attack on Donald Hoard, intended to kill him with succinylcholine chloride, and stood to benefit by his death.

"This was a first," Anne Arundel County State's Attorney Frank R. Weathersbee said, meaning that it's the kind of case you'd see in a movie - not in real life.