"We're Just Going to Continue to Have Faith in God Because Our Government Has Failed Us Repeatedly"
/Last Friday, August 4, 2017, we received a decision from the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. You can read it HERE.
This is not the decision we had been praying for; it is not true justice. And, as Paul Slough's wife, Christin, stated in a recent interview you can find HERE, "We're just going to continue to have faith in God because our government has failed us repeatedly."
While Nick Slatten's conviction was rightly overturned due to statements proving his innocence being hidden from his jury, the government wrongly retains the right to retry him. It is not yet clear whether the government will continue to pursue Nick for a crime he did not commit. Either way, Nick has many more procedural hurdles to clear before he's home with his family.
And so do Dustin Heard, Evan Liberty, and Paul Slough. One of Evan's convictions was overturned, and the appeals court ordered that he, Dustin, and Paul be resentenced due to the government's misapplication of the federal weapons law to them (which is what carried the 30-year mandatory minimum sentence). If a resentencing occurs, our prayer is for time served, but that would be a miracle. We know from the last sentencing that the typical sentence would be more in the range of 10-15 years. However, we are not giving up. Before we go back before the trial court for resentencing, there are options to ask the entire D.C. Circuit to rehear the case; and there's always the Supreme Court of the United States.
Less than a week from the decision, we are still weighing all the options with our defense team. Please check back here and sign up for our Free Raven 23 Newsletter to stay informed as we work our way through the complex legal process that stands in the way of restoring all four of our families. And, above all, please keep us in your prayers. #KeepTheFaith #FreeRaven23