A federal appeals court has overturned the conviction of Nicholas Slatten, a Blackwater Security contractor involved in a 2007 incident in Iraq where 17 civilians lost their lives. Three other contractors who were also convicted in the 2015 trial had their 30-year sentences thrown out on Eighth Amendment grounds. Blackwater maintained that the convoy of State Department employees they were escorting came under attack in a crowded Baghdad square.  But another contractor who turned states' evidence disputed that fact, as did the U.S. military.  The jury convicted Slatten of first-degree murder and the three other contractors of murder with a machine gun. Daily Caller: In a 2007 incident, 14 Iraqis were killed in Baghdad's Nisour Square by Blackwater security employees protecting a four-truck convoy of State Department diplomats. Blackwater claimed the convoy was ambushed and the contractors engaged in a firefight. The four...(Read Full Post)