United States Fourth Circuit

In a conviction of a defendant, a citizen of South Africa, for assault resulting in serious bodily injury during an altercation at Kandahar Airfield (KAF), while employed with private contractors supporting the NATO war effort in Afghanistan, the judgment of the district court is affirmed, as: 1) the Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act (MEJA) is constitutional as applied in this case where it is defendant's status as an employee of the contractor that brings his actions at KAF within the criminal misconduct that MEJA was enacted to govern; and 2) his status as a foreign employee is irrelevant, as are the attributes of the victim. Further, although defendant did not target his conduct toward American soil or American commerce, his actions affected significant American interests, and thus application of MEJA is not arbitrary or fundamentally unfair.

Appellate Information

• Decided 08/10/2012
• Published 08/10/2012

Judges

• King

Court

• United States Fourth Circuit

Counsel