Brothers Behind Massive Salmonella Outbreak Lose Habeas Appeals

Former Peanut Corp. of America executives convicted of crimes leading to a deadly nationwide salmonella outbreak in late 2008 and early 2009 lost appeals claiming that their lawyers were constitutionally ineffective.

Brothers Stewart and Michael Parnell claimed they were entitled to be tried in a different venue because the jury pool where they were tried was presumptively prejudiced by “pretrial publicity and community hostility,” under the test in Skilling v. United States.

But the US Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit disagreed. A presumption of jury prejudice under Skilling doesn’t automatically come with a presumption of deficient performance ...