The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit is ready to hear the back-to-back oral arguments on behalf of Michael and Stewart Parnell.
The brothers, once associated with a deadly Salmonella outbreak blamed on the now defunct Peanut Corporation of America, are asking for the vacation of their convictions and sentences under federal Habeas Corpus proceedings. The back-to-back oral arguments are scheduled for Sept. 26 in Atlanta.
A three-judge panel consisting of Chief Judge William H. Pryor Jr., Judge Robert J.
Luck, and Senior Judge Edward Earl Carnes will hear the arguments. Former President George W. Bush appointed Chief Justice Pryor and Senior Judge Carnes to the 11th Circuit, and former President Donald J.
Trump named Judge Luck. Savannah attorney Amy Lee Copeland, who represents Stewart Parnell, and Virginia attorney Elliott M. Harding for Michael Barnett will each get 15 minutes to make their case.
Government attorneys opposing the Parnell motions will get equal time. Stewart Parnell, 70, and Michael Parnell, 65, are federal inmates at the same Butner, NC, federal prison known as “Butner Low.” It is a low-security facility for less than 1,000 inmates.
The brothers appealed to the 11th Circuit after the Middle District of Georgia, the same court that convicted and sentenced them in 2014, denied their motions. In 2008-09, the Peanut Corporation of America’s (PCA’s) Georgia peanut processing plant was the source of a multi-state Salmonella outbreak that sickened.