Legal Analyst: Government Might Not Have the Law On Its Side

The federal case built against the five former Blackwater men rests on a thin reed that has no legal precedent. That's according to yet another legal analyst who has blown holes in the credibility of the Justice Department's prosecution.

The prosecutors' choice to rest the case heavily on the Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act (MEJA) provides "special opportunities for the defense, and headaches for the prosecution," says Charles Putnam, co-director of the Justiceworks program at the University of New Hampshire.

"It is fair to say one of the things the defense attorneys will do is to hold the government's feet to the fire and make sure the law works the way it was supposed to work," Putnam says.

One of the accused, former Marine Evan Liberty, is from New Hampshire, and he's getting a lot of public support from the people who know him personally. Liberty's hometown newspaper, Foster's Daily Democrat, has run a series of supportive articles about him and the case.