Aug 20 2008
Civil Prosecution Of Our Military Personnel? What Is Up With This Crap!
Reader Stevevvs pointed me to this incredible story about how one of our military personnel is being prosecuted for War Crimes in a civil court:
A former Marine sergeant facing the first federal civilian prosecution of a military member accused of a war crime says there is much more at stake than his claim of innocence on charges that he killed unarmed detainees in Fallujah, Iraq.
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Nazario is the first military service member who has completed his duty to be brought to trial under a law that allows the government to prosecute defense contractors, military dependents and those no longer in the military who commit crimes outside the United States.
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If that is so, we have about 270 bazillion war crimes to prosecute, starting with old-timers from WWI.
The Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act law was written in 2000 and amended in 2004 primarily to prosecute civilian contractors who commit crimes while working for the U.S. overseas. One of the authors contends prosecuting former military personnel was “not the motivation.”
“I don’t fault the Department of Justice for using what legal authority they have if a clear criminal act has been committed. But I do think that it would be preferable for crimes committed on active duty be prosecuted by court martial rather than in civilian courts,” said Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala.
Read the entire nightmare story. There is no way to convict the man, as the article points out:
Nazario said he has no regrets about being a Marine, only regrets about what has happened since.
“My faith in the system is shaken. There’s no doubt about that,” he said.
One of Nazario’s defense attorneys, Doug Applegate, said he believes that ultimately the former Marine will be acquitted because of lack of evidence.
“There are no bodies, no forensic evidence, no crime scene and no identities,” he said.
How does such a “case” even go to trial?
It is unclear what, if anything, Marines being subpoenaed to testify will say about the events in the house in Fallujah.
This needs to be ended and now. It is also a signature topic for McCain and Obama to weigh in on.Â
Just an example of the tactics from the left here.
They know it is bogus and really don’t care.
The idea is simply the shotgun method.
Shoot at everything and hope you hit something that does some damage.
THANK YOU AJ!!! Thanks for pointing this injustic out!
Michael Savage sent him $1,000.00, and will send more. He sent a lot to the other marines charged before. I believe he will set up a fund for others to contribute to as well.
Like he said last night, Bush could, and should stop this case. I hope he does.
Time to cook, shower, then head to work. Thanks again, take care everyone!
On the face of it, yeah – this looks REAL freaking shady. Apparently, this was meant to try and hold civilian contractors responsibile for crimes commited in Iraq. Charging a Marine with a war crime in civilian court just feels really, REALLY wrong.
But Merlin, seriously: “tactics from the left”? Since when is the Bush Department of Justice on “the left”?
Breschau agree “tactics from the left” is a bit of a stretch. This is RICO all over again, yes the Prosecuters are overeaching and regardless of their politcal leaning this has the smell of some one passing their moral judgement on how the war is to be conducted down in the trenches. I had the same fight with some one after the first US-Iraq war, where she was complaining about the fact that we were bulldozing trenches and fortifications burying the soldiers who refused to surrender. I told her in no uncertain terms that when we ask our fellow citizens to put their lives at risk to go kill some else, never, ever question how they get the job done. If you have a problem with a war, you take it up with the Political Leaders who went to war.
I am curious to hear why the Prosecuters did not refer the matter to the Military Authorities.
I expect this to be a Law and Order episode later on this season, oh joy.
Apparently once someone is discharged from the military they can no longer be brought before a military court. If true, that’s the mistake – jurisdiction should not end just because someone’s term of enlistment ends.
This law seems to have been passed because if charges are filed long after the fact, there was no US court that had jurisdiction to hear them. Nevertheless, this is still an outrage, and any decent defense lawyer should be able to beat this. And remember, he can strike anyone who’s anti-military from the jury. Make sure and get a jury of veterans and this case is toast.
I agree that this is an injustice, but cannot for the life of me figure out why you all care about this example when there have been far worse examples of our government’s scape-goating our soldiers.
Everyone seems to forget about the nine enlisted U.S. Army soldiers (none with a higher rank than staff sergeant) who were court-martialed, convicted of crimes and imprisoned for using harsh interrogation techniques on prisoners in Abu Ghraib. Based on the public release of U.S government documents earlier this year, we now know for a fact that virtually all of the interrogation techniques that were employed by these soldiers at Abu Ghraib had been approved by Rumsfeld and other senior government officials. All of them – stress positions, forced nudity, sleep deprivation, use of dogs, sleep and sensory deprivation, water boarding, etc. In other words, the US government sold these soldiers down the river in order to cover up the fact that these interrogation techniques were approved at the highest levels of the government in an attempt to minimize the fall out and damage to our world reputation when the infamous photographs were released. Not a single commanding officer was prosecuted, despite the fact that Paragraph 501 of Army Field Manual 27-10, holds that a commander is legally responsible not only for orders handed down but “if he has actual knowledge, or should have knowledge … that troops or other persons subject to his control are about to commit or have committed a war crime and he fails to take the necessary and reasonable steps to insure compliance with the law of war or to punish violators thereof.”
It’s sad, but I’m not the least bit surprised that Bush’s Department of Justice would abuse its prosecutorial powers against one of our own soldiers for political purposes. But I just cannot get too worked up over a civil prosecution when we still have scape-goated soldiers serving prison time for using approved interrogation techniques.
Don’t think the method of prosecution is the issue, as he could have been charged under the UCMJ. The only difference is the jury pool. I think it might be easier to get jury nullification by civilian jury. But the prosecution is the issue, not the manner. There must be alot of testimonial evidence from former squadmates, as a case without physical evidence needs eyewitness testimony. I find it hard to believe that the overworked Central District of California will take any case that is not airtight. AUSAs don’t like to loose cases. As a matter of fact, they have real career problems in the office if they loose a case at trial.
conman
I’m not quite sure that is what they were charged with, I think it was for ‘other things’ I don’t think they were charged with using harsh interrogation techniques. but in any case, if you were the commanding officer of a prison, and a guard (military) killed a prisoner for no good reason and you arrested the guard and had him tried, should you be tried for it also? note: I just checked and it was ‘prisoner abuse’ that they were charged with, not torture and it was for such things as sodomy. this is not an approved interrogation technique.
but this case in the post, I don’t know what’s right in this kind of situation. I know the way this one has been handled has been terrible. If the military had no jurisdiction, why did they arrest him and turn him over to Navy investigators? I guess if a military person actually commits a crime and there is solid evidence of it but it doesn’t become known until after he has been discharged, then I guess he should be recalled to active duty and tried by military. I know for sure that a civilian court SHOULD NOT have jurisdiction in this case.
Redteam,
You need to check your facts more carefully. They were not charged for “other things” or sodomy. They were charged for a wide range of crimes, including dereliction of duty, maltreatment of detainees, assault and committing ndecent acts. Here is a link to an article that explains what each of the nine soldiers was convicted for so you can see for yourself. http://www.salon.com/news/abu_ghraib/2006/03/14/prosecutions_convictions/index.html. Private England was given a 3-year imprisonment for “holding a leash tied to a detainee’s neck, smiling while pointing at hooded and naked detainees, and giving a thumbs-up sign next to a group of naked detainees bound and stacked in a pyramid”. Private Cruz was given an 8-month imprisonment for “forcing detainees to strip and crawl on their hands and knees, pouring cold water on detainees and helping position detainees for a photograph so that they appeared to be sodomizing one another.” You are okay with these sentences? Wow.
Many of these actions were specifically approved techniques – forced nudity, sexual humiliation, hooding prisoners, threatening death or serious harm, etc. Additionally, you fail to grasp that the Bush administration re-defined torture to mean anything that does not involve “force likely to produce death or grievous bodily harm,” so therefore all of these actions fall outside this definition of torture.
By the way, your hypothectical about the commanding officers doesn’t make sense. This is not a situation where the commanding officers didn’t know about this conduct and acted immediately to correct the situation upon learning of it. That situation doesn’t even trigger the Army Field Manual section I quoted. You need to read it more carefully – it only applies if the commanding officer has “actual knowledge, or should have knowledge” of war crimes and “fails to take the necessary and reasonable steps to insure compliance with the law of war or to punish violators thereof.†This is an example of soldiers using approved interrogation techniques, out in the open with the knowledge of commanders who were merely relieved of command and reprimanded.
Hey, if you are okay with selling out our soldiers when it is politically convenient, I guess that is your perrogative.
Conman:
Well, honestly – I can only be outraged about so many things at one time.
I have a hard time feeling indignation or sorrow over those soldiers’ fates – they knew what they were doing was wrong. And if they were so freakin’ stupid as to take digital pictures of it, then they deserve what they got.
But you’re right – the true outrage is that no one up the food chain ever took a fall for this. And I’ve just resigned myself to the fact that there is zero chance of anything happening while Bush/Cheney are still in charge — and sadly, I feel there’s practically zero chance even if Obama wins.
We have a military justice system that works pretty damn well. That is where cases like this belong, if there is anything to prosecute.
conman
Your point was that the things you listed were what these people were guilty of and that they ‘had been approved’ by etc. My point was that they were not guilty of any of those things, (but other things) they were in fact guilty of the other things such as I said. mistreatment of prisoners, dereliction of duty, sodomy. one of those guys, the unnatural sex act was sodomy.(I read that from a google search) Had they been actually doing the things you listed in the course of approved interrogation, there would not have been a trial.
My point exactly was that there has been no proof that the commanding officer had ‘actual knowledge or should have had knowledge’ so it would be a tough case to make.
But the point of the post was that the Marine Sargeant shouldn’t be tried by civilians and I agree 100% with that.
conman, I missed this, but it deserves comment:
but according to ‘your link’ none of these people were charged with using approved interrogation techniques as listed in ‘your list’. Dereliction of duty, mistreatment of prisoners, etc are not related to them.
Okay with me? I’m a veteran and I’m not in favor of selling out any military for any reason, but I’m also not in favor of prisoners being mistreated (note: I didn’t say tortured)
but in the process of legal interrogation(which none of those acts were) then all approved methods are fair. I’m not trying to make you the bad guy (breschau is sufficient), so don’t try to make me one.
Remember this story? IMPORTANT UPDATE!!!!
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iraq/2641186/US-marine-acquitted-of-war-crimes-in-ground-breaking-trial.html
“The defence, which did not call any witnesses, argued there was not enough evidence to prove a crime had been committed and told jurors a guilty verdict could endanger US service members by making them second-guess their actions in combat.
Nazario, who did not testify, was found NOT GUILTY of all charges, including manslaughter, assault with a deadly weapon and use of a firearm. If convicted, he could have faced 10 years in prison.
One of the jurors speaking after the verdict was read said the panel acquitted him because there was not enough evidence. ”
No witnesses for the defense, not even the defendant? For a jury to acquit this quickly, this means that the prosecution’s case collapsed completely in the courtroom and this case should never have been brought. Btw, I commend his defense attorneys for this move – the defense always has the option of immediately going to the jury at the end of the prosecutions case if they believe the prosecutor has completely blown it, and that’s what happened here. No witnesses for the defense means no cross examinations of the defendant on the stand – very good tactical move when the prosecutor hasn’t made his own case.
The humiliation of the prosecutor in this case makes it likely that this kind of case will almost never be brought again. As Combat18 said, AUSA’s don’t like to lose cases, and this proscutor didn’t just lose, he got spanked, to the point that a “career change” is probably in order.