The three-judge panel that heard oral arguments in the habeas corpus appeals of Peanut Corporation of America’s Stewart and Michael Parnell took 320 days to write a 43-page opinion, leaving the brothers in federal prison to serve out their sentences.
The brothers were sentenced after being found guilty in a case involving an outbreak related to their peanut products that sickened more than 700 and killed several people.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit heard the Parnell brothers’ consolidated appeal on issues involving their claims of ineffective assistance of counsel arising from the decision not to seek a change of venue based on a presumption of jury prejudice because of pretrial publicity and community hostility.
The habeas corpus petitions filed six years ago by the Parnells as Motions under 2255 for federal prisoners are both denied with the decision published Aug. 11 and written by Circuit Judge Ed Carnes. It upholds the U.S. District Court denials issued by Judge W. Louis Sands in the Middle District of Georgia. Sands was also the original trial judge who presided over the federal felony case from 2013 to 2015,
“There was enough evidence at their trial to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Stewart and Michael Parnell knowingly distributed untested peanut products with fraudulent Certificates of Analysis, and they failed to inform customers when they later discovered those lots had tested positive for bacteria,” Carnes wrote.
“There was also enough evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Stewart kept retesting the product that had tested positive for bacteria until he got a negative result, and he knowingly shipped the product that had tested positive. The results were dire,” he added.
“The infected peanut products resulted in a Salmonella outbreak that caused more than 700 illnesses across the country and reportedly caused nine deaths,” the decision continues. “There were also economic impacts, especially in southwest Georgia. The region around Albany, Georgia (including Blakeley) grows about 60 percent of the peanuts produced in the entire country, which is why the region is often called the ‘peanut capital of America.’ A peanut broker from Albany testified at a hearing on Stewart’s § 2255 motion that the Salmonella outbreak ‘devastated’ the peanut industry there.”
After a 34-day jury trial in 2014, the Parnells were taken into federal custody upon their convictions. Sands imposed a 28-year sentence on Stewart Parnell, now 71, and 20 years for now 66-year-old Michael Parnell. They both remain in custody at the low-security federal correctional facility at Butner, NC.
According to the Bureau of Prisons, Stewart’s release date is 2038 and Michael’s is 2031.
As for the ruling, the defense team’s decision not to file a motion to change venue and their reasoning behind it may have been decisive.
“While they retained the right to reconsider the decision after jury voir dire was conducted, the conclusion that counsel reached before then was that it was not in their clients’ best interests to file a motion to change venue,” the published decision says. “According to attorney Bondurant, the lawyers for both Stewart and Michael were all on board with the decision to keep the case in the assigned venue (Albany, GA).
“All six defense attorneys testified unambiguously that the decision not to move for a venue change was a ‘deliberate’ and ‘strategic’ choice,” it said. “The district court credited their testimony that it was a deliberate decision made for strategic reasons.
“In reaching their strategic decision to stay in the Albany Division, the attorneys considered how certain defenses would play with different types of jurors. A defense under active consideration by both sets of attorneys was ‘government overreach.’
”The theme of that defense would be that the federal government was primarily responsible for the economic fallout following the salmonella outbreak. Because it had over-regulated the peanut industry and then unfairly scapegoated the Parnells. Both defense teams concluded that the rural Albany Division was a good place to put forward a government overreach defense. And they did put forward that defense.”
Thus, Parnell lost one of the two issues on appeal because the evidence shows that a change of venue was not requested, as Albany was strategically determined to be best for their plan to argue against the government. It had nothing to do with ineffective trial counsel but was a choice made by experienced defense attorneys.
As for the pre-trial publicity, its relevance as an issue was reduced mainly by the 5-year gap between the outbreak and trial.
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