The U.S. court system recently ruled in favor of the first piracy conviction in an American courtroom in almost 200 years. In relation to the attack of the USS Nicholas in April of 2010, a three-judge panel of the 4^th U.S. District Court of appeals found the five defendants guilty and sentenced the men to life in prison.

Attorneys are now seeking to overturn the piracy conviction, the first of its kind since 1819. According to legal defense of the five Somali men who attacked a U.S. Navy warship, the incident does not meet the ancient definition of pirates which states that attackers must board the ship or rob it in order to be an act of piracy. However, the government argues that the attack which occurred in territory off Africa was violent enough to meet international law defining piracy.

When forced to follow the rules set forth by a law as old as that which defines the acts of pirates, especially one so rarely practiced, it is understandable for every argument and decision surrounding the case to be questioned. The natural need for thorough review of each and every detail involved in any criminal case becomes even more crucial when the governing law is a hot topic of debate.

Upon review of the specifics of the USS Nicholas attack, there is definitely room for questioning. The navy ship was north of the Seychelles Islands in the Indian Ocean at the time of the attack. Rocket-propelled grenades were fired on the ship by three men in a skiff, followed by AK-47 fire. No sailors aboard the USS Nicholas were injured or killed during the attack. Furthermore, not one of the Somali men ever boarded the navy ship or took anything from it. As entry and/or robbery are the two components used to define piracy, the conviction of these men is highly debatable.

The dispute has continued as government and Congress have adopted an interpretation of piracy as any attack of violence occurring on the high seas. Their version does not require robbery in order to qualify as piracy. Rather than referring to the direct statements set forth by the wording of the law, government officials have chosen to embrace a definition which they feel more accurately represents the evolution of the law since the time of its original inception hundreds of years ago.

While it is always good to take all accounts into consideration, including interpretations before making an ultimate ruling, governing courts must also ensure that their decisions reflect uniformity and a lack of bias. This may seem second nature, but it becomes questionable when recent rulings are compared to similar decisions from the past. For example, in the case of the Somali men convicted it would seem only fair and reasonable to assume that any past or future cases would be ruled in a similar manner. However, only a year ago, a different group of defendants accused of piracy were dismissed by a judge in Norfolk. The ruling came after another U.S. Navy ship, the USS Ashland, was attacked. The judge ultimately ruled that the attack did not meet the aged stipulations of the law defining piracy because the Navy ship was neither taken control of nor robbed by the accused men. Unlike the case involving the Somali men, the Ashland incident did result in the death of one man and injury of several more.

The inconsistency among court decisions leaves a lot to be questioned about U.S. court rulings. U.S. piracy law is based on a case that resulted in conviction in 1819, and the same piracy law established centuries ago is still used today.