Associated Press
NEW ORLEANS--A former BP engineer is entitled to a new trial on
an obstruction of justice charge stemming from an investigation of
the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill, a federal appeals court ruled
Tuesday.
The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a lower-court
ruling that granted Kurt Mix a new trial because of jury misconduct
in his 2013 trial.
Prosecutors accused Mr. Mix of deleting text messages about the
amount of oil flowing from BP's Macondo well after the 2010
Deepwater Horizon disaster. He was acquitted on one criminal count
at his 2013 trial but convicted on one count of obstruction of
justice.
However, U.S. District Judge Stanwood Duval later ruled that the
jury forewoman had tainted deliberations.
According to the court record, she had overheard on a courthouse
elevator that other BP employees were being prosecuted in addition
to Mr. Mix. She later told deadlocked fellow jurors that she had
heard something that, in the words of Tuesday's ruling, "increased
her confidence in voting guilty."
Mr. Mix has pleaded not guilty. His defense team says there is
ample evidence he shared information about the flow rate throughout
the government investigation. They also said prosecutors failed to
prove Mr. Mix knew the information he deleted would be pertinent to
a grand jury investigation--an investigation they said he didn't
know about and that hadn't yet even begun.
In upholding Judge Duval's decision, a three-judge 5th Circuit
panel said federal prosecutors failed to prove that the jury
forewoman's remarks were harmless and hadn't prejudiced the
jury.
"The government now argues that the evidence against Mix was so
overwhelming that the extrinsic information was irrelevant to his
conviction," Judge Edith Brown Clement wrote on behalf of the
panel. "This argument fails."
A new trial date has not yet been set.
Tuesday's ruling came weeks after a federal jury acquitted David
Rainey, a former vice president for BP Exploration and Production
Co., on charges that he lied to investigators looking into the
spill.
Trial is pending for BP well site leaders Robert Kaluza and
Donald Vidrine, who have pleaded not guilty to manslaughter charges
stemming from the deaths of 11 workers who were on the Deepwater
Horizon when it exploded.
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