U.S. District Judge Janis Sammartino said during a hearing in her San Diego courtroom that prosecutorial “misconduct started (the) unraveling of this case.” She called it an “extremely unfortunate” situation that was “all the government’s making.
In a similar move last year as the result of the same government misconduct, the judge tossed out the jury convictions of four Navy officers who had been found guilty at trial and allowed them to plead guilty to misdemeanor counts.
Sammartino made it clear Tuesday that there was no new information to suggest the five defendants in her courtroom did not accept the bribes or commit the acts to which they previously pleaded guilty. But she said that the misconduct and its snowball effect made it so that dismissing Shedd’s charges and allowing the four misdemeanor plea deals was the best remaining option.
American Military News.
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