Defense lawyers said Thursday that it's an open question whether the government has jurisdiction to prosecute the guards. The trial judge in the first case, Ricardo Urbina, who has since retired, left the question for the jury to decide. The prosecution never got to a jury the first time around. Urbana dismissed the charges in a ruling in December 2009, finding that the indictment was "fatally tainted."
Lamberth is planning to meet again with the defense lawyers and prosecutors at a hearing in April.
This article first appeared on The BLT: The Blog of Legal Times.
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