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Court Martial Attorney - Marine recruiter gets 3 years for sexual assault
SAN DIEGO: A jury panel at Marine Corps Recruit Depot in San Diego has sentenced a recruiter to three years in prison for sexually assaulting a 20-year-old Marine last year.
Sgt. David M. Marshall, 27, had been convicted of aggravated sexual assault and procuring alcohol for an underage person, a Marine spokesman said.
During the court martial, prosecutors accused Marshall of buying drinks for the female Marine at several bars in Lubbock, Texas, then taking her home and forcing her to have sex with him. Marshall's lawyers contended the sex was consensual.
The panel of five officers and three enlisted Marines delivered its sentence Wednesday. It ordered that Marshall be reduced to the lowest enlisted rank. It also took away his pay for the duration of his sentence and handed him a bad-conduct discharge.
Marshall served as a recruiter in Texas, but the trial was held at the depot because San Diego is the command headquarters for Marine recruiters in the Western United States. –S.L.
Michael Waddington is a court martial lawyer - court martial attorney that defends military personnel worldwide as well as deployed civilian contractors subject to the UCMJ. He defends Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine, Coast Guard, and civilian contractor court martial cases. He has successfully defended military personnel as a court martial lawyer Army Navy Marine & Air Force court martials in Germany, England, San Diego, Norfolk, Jacksonville, Fort Bragg, Fort Jackson, Fort Stewart, Fort Gordon, Italy, Iraq, Kuwait, Korea, Okinawa, Japan, Yokota, and throughout the United States. military-defense-lawyer-recentcases.htm.
Court Martial Lawyer - Canadian soldier playing 'quick draw' when comrade was shot
Court Martial Lawyer - Canadian soldier playing 'quick draw' when comrade was shot
By Chris Shannon, Cape Breton PostJune 25, 2009
Cpl. Matthew Wilcox is charged with manslaughter, criminal negligence causing death, and negligent performance of duty in the death of a colleague in Afghanistan.
SYDNEY, N.S. — Cpl. Matthew Wilcox said he was playing a game called "quick draw" when a gun went off killing a fellow soldier in Afghanistan in 2007, a close friend of the accused told Wilcox's court martial Thursday in Sydney.
During a conversation Master Cpl. Kyle Keigan had with Wilcox on a night they both consumed as many as seven shots of rum and coke, Keigan said Wilcox admitted to playing the game with Cpl. Kevin Megeney just prior to his death.
"His weapon went off but he didn't know it was loaded. He said it was a stupid mistake," Keigan, a member of the 2nd Battalion of the Nova Scotia Highlanders, recalled Wilcox saying.
Quick draw was described in court as two soldiers facing each other three to four metres apart, with the intention of grabbing their handgun from the holster and pointing it in the position to shoot your opponent.
Keigan was the first witness to testify in Wilcox's court martial on its opening day.
Wilcox, 23, from Glace Bay, N.S., is charged in the shooting death of Megeney, a Stellarton, N.S. native, who was shot with a single bullet from a 9-mm Browning army-issued handgun at the Kandahar base March 6, 2007.
He is also facing charges of criminal negligence causing death and negligent performance of duty.
During cross-examination, a number of inconsistencies in Keigan's story began to appear as defence lawyer Maj. Steve Turner questioned him.
Keigan couldn't remember where the conversation with Wilcox took place or if they were joined by anyone else. He couldn't recall if they were dressed in civilian clothes or uniform. He also wasn't sure if the meeting took place in November or December 2007.
Meanwhile, lead prosecutor Lt.-Cmdr. Robert Fetterly outlined in his opening statement a timeline of events on the day of the shooting.
Megeney and Wilcox had returned to their quarters after their shift. Another soldier who bunked with them wasn't around.
A shot was heard, followed by screaming, Fetterly told the four-member military panel. Within seconds, Megeney was found "mortally wounded" with entry and exit wounds on his body.
Panicked, the soldiers didn't wait for an ambulance and instead lifted Megeney on to a stretcher, and ran with it until they reached the Kandahar Airfield hospital.
Blood had soaked through a rug on the floor of the tent and there was a hole through a plywood support beam of the tent, Fetterly said.
A bullet was found hours later when military police were called back to the scene.
Fetterly told the court martial, the 9-mm Browning has a number of safety features. If the weapon's magazine is released, even if a bullet is in the chamber, it will not fire, Fetterly said.
"Cpl. Wilcox failed to make his weapon safe," he said.
"There has to be a magazine in it and he had to pull the trigger."
Later Thursday, the court heard from Cpl. Bertrand Ryles, who talked with Wilcox a couple days after Megeney's death.
Ryles said he looked "shocked and withdrawn."
Calling it an awkward moment, Ryles said Wilcox opened up to him saying: "We were role playing. It was an accident. We just wanted to see who was faster."
Earlier in the day the defence surprised military judge Cmdr. Peter Lamont by informing the court an application had been filed with the Federal Court in Halifax accusing the court martial as being improperly constituted because it does not include non-commissioned officers.
Michael Waddington is a court martial lawyer - court martial attorney that defends military personnel worldwide as well as deployed civilian contractors subject to the UCMJ. He defends Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine, Coast Guard, and civilian contractor court martial cases. He has successfully defended military personnel as a court martial lawyer Army Navy Marine & Air Force court martials in Germany, England, San Diego, Norfolk, Jacksonville, Fort Bragg, Fort Jackson, Fort Stewart, Fort Gordon, Italy, Iraq, Kuwait, Korea, Okinawa, Japan, Yokota, and throughout the United States. military-defense-lawyer-recentcases.htm.
By Chris Shannon, Cape Breton PostJune 25, 2009
Cpl. Matthew Wilcox is charged with manslaughter, criminal negligence causing death, and negligent performance of duty in the death of a colleague in Afghanistan.
SYDNEY, N.S. — Cpl. Matthew Wilcox said he was playing a game called "quick draw" when a gun went off killing a fellow soldier in Afghanistan in 2007, a close friend of the accused told Wilcox's court martial Thursday in Sydney.
During a conversation Master Cpl. Kyle Keigan had with Wilcox on a night they both consumed as many as seven shots of rum and coke, Keigan said Wilcox admitted to playing the game with Cpl. Kevin Megeney just prior to his death.
"His weapon went off but he didn't know it was loaded. He said it was a stupid mistake," Keigan, a member of the 2nd Battalion of the Nova Scotia Highlanders, recalled Wilcox saying.
Quick draw was described in court as two soldiers facing each other three to four metres apart, with the intention of grabbing their handgun from the holster and pointing it in the position to shoot your opponent.
Keigan was the first witness to testify in Wilcox's court martial on its opening day.
Wilcox, 23, from Glace Bay, N.S., is charged in the shooting death of Megeney, a Stellarton, N.S. native, who was shot with a single bullet from a 9-mm Browning army-issued handgun at the Kandahar base March 6, 2007.
He is also facing charges of criminal negligence causing death and negligent performance of duty.
During cross-examination, a number of inconsistencies in Keigan's story began to appear as defence lawyer Maj. Steve Turner questioned him.
Keigan couldn't remember where the conversation with Wilcox took place or if they were joined by anyone else. He couldn't recall if they were dressed in civilian clothes or uniform. He also wasn't sure if the meeting took place in November or December 2007.
Meanwhile, lead prosecutor Lt.-Cmdr. Robert Fetterly outlined in his opening statement a timeline of events on the day of the shooting.
Megeney and Wilcox had returned to their quarters after their shift. Another soldier who bunked with them wasn't around.
A shot was heard, followed by screaming, Fetterly told the four-member military panel. Within seconds, Megeney was found "mortally wounded" with entry and exit wounds on his body.
Panicked, the soldiers didn't wait for an ambulance and instead lifted Megeney on to a stretcher, and ran with it until they reached the Kandahar Airfield hospital.
Blood had soaked through a rug on the floor of the tent and there was a hole through a plywood support beam of the tent, Fetterly said.
A bullet was found hours later when military police were called back to the scene.
Fetterly told the court martial, the 9-mm Browning has a number of safety features. If the weapon's magazine is released, even if a bullet is in the chamber, it will not fire, Fetterly said.
"Cpl. Wilcox failed to make his weapon safe," he said.
"There has to be a magazine in it and he had to pull the trigger."
Later Thursday, the court heard from Cpl. Bertrand Ryles, who talked with Wilcox a couple days after Megeney's death.
Ryles said he looked "shocked and withdrawn."
Calling it an awkward moment, Ryles said Wilcox opened up to him saying: "We were role playing. It was an accident. We just wanted to see who was faster."
Earlier in the day the defence surprised military judge Cmdr. Peter Lamont by informing the court an application had been filed with the Federal Court in Halifax accusing the court martial as being improperly constituted because it does not include non-commissioned officers.
Michael Waddington is a court martial lawyer - court martial attorney that defends military personnel worldwide as well as deployed civilian contractors subject to the UCMJ. He defends Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine, Coast Guard, and civilian contractor court martial cases. He has successfully defended military personnel as a court martial lawyer Army Navy Marine & Air Force court martials in Germany, England, San Diego, Norfolk, Jacksonville, Fort Bragg, Fort Jackson, Fort Stewart, Fort Gordon, Italy, Iraq, Kuwait, Korea, Okinawa, Japan, Yokota, and throughout the United States. military-defense-lawyer-recentcases.htm.
Court Martial Lawyer - Fort Lewis soldier not involved in teen's death, friend says
Court Martial Lawyer - Fort Lewis soldier not involved in teen's death, friend says
By Hal Bernton - Seattle Times staff reporter
FORT LEWIS, Pierce County — A 16-year-old girl who died of a prescription-drug overdose at Fort Lewis brought the pills onto the post and took them without the encouragement of her soldier boyfriend, another girl testified Thursday at an Army hearing.
Trashauna Yoacham offered a sharply different version of the February events that resulted in the Army charging Pvt. Timothy Bennitt with involuntary manslaughter for providing drugs that killed Leah King after she and Yoacham slipped into a barracks for enlisted soldiers.
When asked by a military defense attorney whether Bennitt, King's boyfriend, had any involvement in the drug use, Yoacham responded: "No, he didn't."
Yoacham's testimony came at the end of Article 32 evidentiary hearings and complicates the Army's efforts to prosecute Bennitt. Fort Lewis command must now decide whether to move ahead with a court-martial that could result in Bennitt serving up to 82 years in prison if convicted on all counts.
"She has no motive to fabricate and no bias in this case," said Capt. Don Michael Barbour, a defense attorney for Bennitt before asking an Army investigating officer to recommend that all charges be dismissed because a court-martial would not likely result in a conviction.
But prosecutors dispute that Yoacham, 16, offered an accurate account of the night of Feb. 14, and also say that the drug consumption detailed in her testimony would not have been enough to cause an overdose death.
"She certainly indicated some problems with her memory, and when questioned she indicated there were many details she had forgotten," said Capt. John Schriver, a prosecuting attorney, in final remarks at the hearing.
King's death in the barracks focused public attention on lax procedures that allowed underage girls to party in soldiers' barracks and led to a crackdown on minors coming onto the post without parents or guardians. King and Yoacham ended up passed out on Bennitt's bed in the barracks, with King dying of an overdose and Yoacham hospitalized for days.
Prosecutors have sought to blame Bennitt. They note that in a Feb. 20 interview with investigators, Bennitt said he had given money to King to purchase Xanax, an anti-depression drug. He also admitted crushing Opana, a pain reliever, so it could be snorted by King at the barracks.
In earlier hearings, an Army investigator testified Bennitt had been illegally buying prescription pills from another Army private in the summer of 2008, and began obtaining prescription drugs from a female friend of King's, including the day before she died.
Defense attorneys say Bennitt was sleep-deprived and emotionally distraught when he made those admissions and have asked the Army to ignore that statement and give weight to an earlier one in which he denied any involvement with the drugs. But during hearings in May and earlier in June, defense attorneys were unable to locate Yoacham to testify and give her version of the evening.
Reporters were initially told by the Army that the hearing would start Thursday afternoon, but the hearing started in the morning, so media were not present for much of Yoacham's testimony.
She testified King was dating the then-19-year-old Bennitt. She said she never saw Bennitt buy drugs for the girls, and the soldier didn't know about the drugs the girls took Feb. 14.
She testified she and King shared an Opana pill at about 11 a.m. that day while they were still off the post. Then, that night at the barracks, King and Yoacham went into the barracks bathroom, where King took out a Xanax pill for them to take.
Yoacham and King went to a couch, and then to the bed.
King was found dead in the barracks at 3:30 a.m. Feb. 15, while Yoacham was found unconscious.
Michael Waddington is a court martial lawyer - court martial attorney that defends military personnel worldwide as well as deployed civilian contractors subject to the UCMJ. He defends Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine, Coast Guard, and civilian contractor court martial cases. He has successfully defended military personnel as a court martial lawyer Army Navy Marine & Air Force court martials in Germany, England, San Diego, Norfolk, Jacksonville, Fort Bragg, Fort Jackson, Fort Stewart, Fort Gordon, Italy, Iraq, Kuwait, Korea, Okinawa, Japan, Yokota, and throughout the United States. military-defense-lawyer-recentcases.htm.
By Hal Bernton - Seattle Times staff reporter
FORT LEWIS, Pierce County — A 16-year-old girl who died of a prescription-drug overdose at Fort Lewis brought the pills onto the post and took them without the encouragement of her soldier boyfriend, another girl testified Thursday at an Army hearing.
Trashauna Yoacham offered a sharply different version of the February events that resulted in the Army charging Pvt. Timothy Bennitt with involuntary manslaughter for providing drugs that killed Leah King after she and Yoacham slipped into a barracks for enlisted soldiers.
When asked by a military defense attorney whether Bennitt, King's boyfriend, had any involvement in the drug use, Yoacham responded: "No, he didn't."
Yoacham's testimony came at the end of Article 32 evidentiary hearings and complicates the Army's efforts to prosecute Bennitt. Fort Lewis command must now decide whether to move ahead with a court-martial that could result in Bennitt serving up to 82 years in prison if convicted on all counts.
"She has no motive to fabricate and no bias in this case," said Capt. Don Michael Barbour, a defense attorney for Bennitt before asking an Army investigating officer to recommend that all charges be dismissed because a court-martial would not likely result in a conviction.
But prosecutors dispute that Yoacham, 16, offered an accurate account of the night of Feb. 14, and also say that the drug consumption detailed in her testimony would not have been enough to cause an overdose death.
"She certainly indicated some problems with her memory, and when questioned she indicated there were many details she had forgotten," said Capt. John Schriver, a prosecuting attorney, in final remarks at the hearing.
King's death in the barracks focused public attention on lax procedures that allowed underage girls to party in soldiers' barracks and led to a crackdown on minors coming onto the post without parents or guardians. King and Yoacham ended up passed out on Bennitt's bed in the barracks, with King dying of an overdose and Yoacham hospitalized for days.
Prosecutors have sought to blame Bennitt. They note that in a Feb. 20 interview with investigators, Bennitt said he had given money to King to purchase Xanax, an anti-depression drug. He also admitted crushing Opana, a pain reliever, so it could be snorted by King at the barracks.
In earlier hearings, an Army investigator testified Bennitt had been illegally buying prescription pills from another Army private in the summer of 2008, and began obtaining prescription drugs from a female friend of King's, including the day before she died.
Defense attorneys say Bennitt was sleep-deprived and emotionally distraught when he made those admissions and have asked the Army to ignore that statement and give weight to an earlier one in which he denied any involvement with the drugs. But during hearings in May and earlier in June, defense attorneys were unable to locate Yoacham to testify and give her version of the evening.
Reporters were initially told by the Army that the hearing would start Thursday afternoon, but the hearing started in the morning, so media were not present for much of Yoacham's testimony.
She testified King was dating the then-19-year-old Bennitt. She said she never saw Bennitt buy drugs for the girls, and the soldier didn't know about the drugs the girls took Feb. 14.
She testified she and King shared an Opana pill at about 11 a.m. that day while they were still off the post. Then, that night at the barracks, King and Yoacham went into the barracks bathroom, where King took out a Xanax pill for them to take.
Yoacham and King went to a couch, and then to the bed.
King was found dead in the barracks at 3:30 a.m. Feb. 15, while Yoacham was found unconscious.
Michael Waddington is a court martial lawyer - court martial attorney that defends military personnel worldwide as well as deployed civilian contractors subject to the UCMJ. He defends Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine, Coast Guard, and civilian contractor court martial cases. He has successfully defended military personnel as a court martial lawyer Army Navy Marine & Air Force court martials in Germany, England, San Diego, Norfolk, Jacksonville, Fort Bragg, Fort Jackson, Fort Stewart, Fort Gordon, Italy, Iraq, Kuwait, Korea, Okinawa, Japan, Yokota, and throughout the United States. military-defense-lawyer-recentcases.htm.
Court Martial Lawyer - Delay in hearing evidence at court martial of soldier
Court Martial Lawyer - Delay in hearing evidence at court martial of soldier
Updated Wed. Jun. 24 2009 11:14 AM ET
The Canadian Press
SYDNEY, N.S. -- It's going to be one more day until evidence is heard by a military panel in the manslaughter trial of a Cape Breton soldier.
Cpl. Matthew Wilcox is also charged with criminal negligence and negligence of duty in the shooting death of Cpl. Kevin Megeney at the Kandahar base in Afghanistan.
The military judge, Cmdr. Peter Lamont, had originally said that a panel would be brought in today to start hearing evidence in the case.
But Lamont told the court today he needs time to consider pre-trial arguments on admissibility of evidence, and recessed the court until Thursday morning.
Megeney, 25, died in his tent after being shot in the chest on March 6, 2007.
Wilcox, 23, was charged with manslaughter last October.
Michael Waddington is a court martial lawyer - court martial attorney that defends military personnel worldwide as well as deployed civilian contractors subject to the UCMJ. He defends Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine, Coast Guard, and civilian contractor court martial cases. He has successfully defended military personnel as a court martial lawyer Army Navy Marine & Air Force court martials in Germany, England, San Diego, Norfolk, Jacksonville, Fort Bragg, Fort Jackson, Fort Stewart, Fort Gordon, Italy, Iraq, Kuwait, Korea, Okinawa, Japan, Yokota, and throughout the United States. military-defense-lawyer-recentcases.htm.
Updated Wed. Jun. 24 2009 11:14 AM ET
The Canadian Press
SYDNEY, N.S. -- It's going to be one more day until evidence is heard by a military panel in the manslaughter trial of a Cape Breton soldier.
Cpl. Matthew Wilcox is also charged with criminal negligence and negligence of duty in the shooting death of Cpl. Kevin Megeney at the Kandahar base in Afghanistan.
The military judge, Cmdr. Peter Lamont, had originally said that a panel would be brought in today to start hearing evidence in the case.
But Lamont told the court today he needs time to consider pre-trial arguments on admissibility of evidence, and recessed the court until Thursday morning.
Megeney, 25, died in his tent after being shot in the chest on March 6, 2007.
Wilcox, 23, was charged with manslaughter last October.
Michael Waddington is a court martial lawyer - court martial attorney that defends military personnel worldwide as well as deployed civilian contractors subject to the UCMJ. He defends Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine, Coast Guard, and civilian contractor court martial cases. He has successfully defended military personnel as a court martial lawyer Army Navy Marine & Air Force court martials in Germany, England, San Diego, Norfolk, Jacksonville, Fort Bragg, Fort Jackson, Fort Stewart, Fort Gordon, Italy, Iraq, Kuwait, Korea, Okinawa, Japan, Yokota, and throughout the United States. military-defense-lawyer-recentcases.htm.
Court Martial Attorney - Court martial to begin in death of Stellarton soldier
Court Martial Attorney - Court martial to begin in death of Stellarton soldier
Transcontinental Media
SYDNEY – A young Glace Bay reservist accused of manslaughter in the death of one of his comrades will find out this morning what evidence military judge Cmdr. Peter Lamont will allow during his court martial.
Cpl. Matthew Wilcox, 23, a member of the 2nd Battalion of the Nova Scotia Highlanders, is charged in the shooting death of Cpl. Kevin Megeney in Afghanistan in March 2007.
He also faces charges of criminal negligence causing death and negligent performance of duty.
Both Wilcox and Megeney, of Stellarton, were alone in a tent on the Kandahar airfield base when a single shot was fired from Wilcox’s 9-mm army-issued handgun.
It’s been nearly 10 months since the original charges were laid in a military courtroom at the army garrison in Sydney.
Following several pre-trial hearings in January, February, March and May, the voir dire hearing involving the admissibility of evidence began June 1.
There has been a publication ban on the proceedings until the voir dire process wraps up, expected later today.
Closing arguments for the prosecution and defence have been lengthy, leading to a delay to the start of the trial with the four-member military panel.
The defence completed its closing arguments late Tuesday night.
Defence lawyer Maj. Stephen Turner introduced an application Wednesday, which is included under the ban, before Lamont adjourned the court for the day.
It is expected the military panel will be sworn in today and the prosecution will then open its case.
The court martial could hear from 59 witnesses before the trial concludes.
Originally it was expected the trial would last up to five weeks, but there are indications it could run through the first two weeks in August.
Megeney family hoping
STELLARTON – The family of Cpl. Kevin Megeney is a bit relieved now that the court martial into his death is beginning this week.
Cpl. Megeney's uncle, George, said on Wednesday morning that there's "a feeling of relief" and that it's another step along a painful road.
"It's been a long process. It's been over two years since Kevin was killed. Hopefully, it'll bring closure for the family after the trial."
Cpl. Matthew Wilcox, 23, is charged with manslaughter and criminal negligence and negligent performance of duty in the March 6, 2007, shooting death of 25-year-old Cpl. Megeney. The shooting occurred when both men were in their tent at the Kandahar Airfield in Afghanistan.
The court martial was expected to begin hearing evidence on Wednesday morning but that was postponed for one more day as the military judge Cmdr. Peter Lamont said he needed time to consider pre-trial arguments on admissibility of evidence. The court recessed until this morning.
Cpl. Megeney's parents, Dexter and Karen, are attending the proceedings at the Victoria Park Garrison in Sydney. George Megeney said he is going to keep in touch with his brother to follow the proceedings until he can attend them himself for the final few days.
George Megeney was in the military for nine years, the latter part of his service he spent in the military police. Over that time he was involved in "quite a few" court martial proceedings but said there's no way to tell which was Wilcox's trial will turn out.
"You can't predict the outcome."
Michael Waddington is a court martial lawyer - court martial attorney that defends military personnel worldwide as well as deployed civilian contractors subject to the UCMJ. He defends Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine, Coast Guard, and civilian contractor court martial cases. He has successfully defended military personnel as a court martial lawyer Army Navy Marine & Air Force court martials in Germany, England, San Diego, Norfolk, Jacksonville, Fort Bragg, Fort Jackson, Fort Stewart, Fort Gordon, Italy, Iraq, Kuwait, Korea, Okinawa, Japan, Yokota, and throughout the United States. military-defense-lawyer-recentcases.htm.
Transcontinental Media
SYDNEY – A young Glace Bay reservist accused of manslaughter in the death of one of his comrades will find out this morning what evidence military judge Cmdr. Peter Lamont will allow during his court martial.
Cpl. Matthew Wilcox, 23, a member of the 2nd Battalion of the Nova Scotia Highlanders, is charged in the shooting death of Cpl. Kevin Megeney in Afghanistan in March 2007.
He also faces charges of criminal negligence causing death and negligent performance of duty.
Both Wilcox and Megeney, of Stellarton, were alone in a tent on the Kandahar airfield base when a single shot was fired from Wilcox’s 9-mm army-issued handgun.
It’s been nearly 10 months since the original charges were laid in a military courtroom at the army garrison in Sydney.
Following several pre-trial hearings in January, February, March and May, the voir dire hearing involving the admissibility of evidence began June 1.
There has been a publication ban on the proceedings until the voir dire process wraps up, expected later today.
Closing arguments for the prosecution and defence have been lengthy, leading to a delay to the start of the trial with the four-member military panel.
The defence completed its closing arguments late Tuesday night.
Defence lawyer Maj. Stephen Turner introduced an application Wednesday, which is included under the ban, before Lamont adjourned the court for the day.
It is expected the military panel will be sworn in today and the prosecution will then open its case.
The court martial could hear from 59 witnesses before the trial concludes.
Originally it was expected the trial would last up to five weeks, but there are indications it could run through the first two weeks in August.
Megeney family hoping
STELLARTON – The family of Cpl. Kevin Megeney is a bit relieved now that the court martial into his death is beginning this week.
Cpl. Megeney's uncle, George, said on Wednesday morning that there's "a feeling of relief" and that it's another step along a painful road.
"It's been a long process. It's been over two years since Kevin was killed. Hopefully, it'll bring closure for the family after the trial."
Cpl. Matthew Wilcox, 23, is charged with manslaughter and criminal negligence and negligent performance of duty in the March 6, 2007, shooting death of 25-year-old Cpl. Megeney. The shooting occurred when both men were in their tent at the Kandahar Airfield in Afghanistan.
The court martial was expected to begin hearing evidence on Wednesday morning but that was postponed for one more day as the military judge Cmdr. Peter Lamont said he needed time to consider pre-trial arguments on admissibility of evidence. The court recessed until this morning.
Cpl. Megeney's parents, Dexter and Karen, are attending the proceedings at the Victoria Park Garrison in Sydney. George Megeney said he is going to keep in touch with his brother to follow the proceedings until he can attend them himself for the final few days.
George Megeney was in the military for nine years, the latter part of his service he spent in the military police. Over that time he was involved in "quite a few" court martial proceedings but said there's no way to tell which was Wilcox's trial will turn out.
"You can't predict the outcome."
Michael Waddington is a court martial lawyer - court martial attorney that defends military personnel worldwide as well as deployed civilian contractors subject to the UCMJ. He defends Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine, Coast Guard, and civilian contractor court martial cases. He has successfully defended military personnel as a court martial lawyer Army Navy Marine & Air Force court martials in Germany, England, San Diego, Norfolk, Jacksonville, Fort Bragg, Fort Jackson, Fort Stewart, Fort Gordon, Italy, Iraq, Kuwait, Korea, Okinawa, Japan, Yokota, and throughout the United States. military-defense-lawyer-recentcases.htm.
Court Martial Lawyer - Army pranksters dragged officer naked from bed following Iraq homecoming party
Court Martial Lawyer - Army pranksters dragged officer naked from bed following Iraq homecoming party
By Daily Mail Reporter
An Army officer was tied up and dragged from his bed by three soldiers during an Iraq homecoming party.
But they struggled to carry him down a flight of stairs and he ended up on the ground, naked and injured.
At a court martial yesterday a corporal and two lance corporals admitted their part in the incident, which had left their victim 'very upset'.
But the hearing at Catterick Garrison, North Yorkshire, heard the instigator of the prank was a captain who was second in command of the cavalry regiment. He was also arrested but was never charged.
Corporal Paul Kingswood, 25, and Lance Corporals Mark Foster, 24, and Matthew Stenton, 22, admitted conduct to the prejudice of good order and military discipline.
The name of the victim and his regiment could not be revealed for legal reasons.
Lieutenant Colonel David Frend, prosecuting, said the incident happened on May 22 last year, just three days after the regiment returned to Germany from a tour of duty in Iraq.
Members of the unit had been invited to a barbecue and party to celebrate.
Lt Col Frend said: 'A large amount of alcohol was consumed by both soldiers and officers.'
Towards the end of the evening the victim returned to his room in the officers' mess and went to bed.
As the party continued, the captain invited the three defendants, among others, to join him back in the officers' mess. The court was told such an invitation was' virtually unheard of'.
The captain 'thought it would be a good idea' to bring another officer along as well, the court heard. He led the three NCOs to the officers' mess annexe and left them there.
The officer they had gone to find was not in his room so the trio targeted another they thought would be 'up for it'.
Lt Col Frend said the NCOs woke the officer and tied his hands with a tie and his feet with a dressing-gown cord. They lifted him from the bed and managed to carry him down a corridor. But during the incident, the hearing was told, the officer's boxer shorts were torn and he ended up naked. He was also left with abrasions to his elbow and knee.
Lt Col Frend added: 'With three people lifting there was a struggle and he suffered injuries.'
He said once the soldiers realised that the officer was in a drunken stupor himself, they carried him back to his room.
The hearing was told that Corporal Kingswood was an 'exemplary' soldier with eight years' service and regarded as one of the best in the regiment.
The other two defendants were also highly regarded.
Kingswood was fined £1,000 and the other two £700.
Assistant Judge Advocate General Paul Camp said: 'The second officer must bear some responsibility for what happened.'
Michael Waddington is a court martial lawyer - court martial attorney that defends military personnel worldwide as well as deployed civilian contractors subject to the UCMJ. He defends Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine, Coast Guard, and civilian contractor court martial cases. He has successfully defended military personnel as a court martial lawyer Army Navy Marine & Air Force court martials in Germany, England, San Diego, Norfolk, Jacksonville, Fort Bragg, Fort Jackson, Fort Stewart, Fort Gordon, Italy, Iraq, Kuwait, Korea, Okinawa, Japan, Yokota, and throughout the United States. military-defense-lawyer-recentcases.htm.
By Daily Mail Reporter
An Army officer was tied up and dragged from his bed by three soldiers during an Iraq homecoming party.
But they struggled to carry him down a flight of stairs and he ended up on the ground, naked and injured.
At a court martial yesterday a corporal and two lance corporals admitted their part in the incident, which had left their victim 'very upset'.
But the hearing at Catterick Garrison, North Yorkshire, heard the instigator of the prank was a captain who was second in command of the cavalry regiment. He was also arrested but was never charged.
Corporal Paul Kingswood, 25, and Lance Corporals Mark Foster, 24, and Matthew Stenton, 22, admitted conduct to the prejudice of good order and military discipline.
The name of the victim and his regiment could not be revealed for legal reasons.
Lieutenant Colonel David Frend, prosecuting, said the incident happened on May 22 last year, just three days after the regiment returned to Germany from a tour of duty in Iraq.
Members of the unit had been invited to a barbecue and party to celebrate.
Lt Col Frend said: 'A large amount of alcohol was consumed by both soldiers and officers.'
Towards the end of the evening the victim returned to his room in the officers' mess and went to bed.
As the party continued, the captain invited the three defendants, among others, to join him back in the officers' mess. The court was told such an invitation was' virtually unheard of'.
The captain 'thought it would be a good idea' to bring another officer along as well, the court heard. He led the three NCOs to the officers' mess annexe and left them there.
The officer they had gone to find was not in his room so the trio targeted another they thought would be 'up for it'.
Lt Col Frend said the NCOs woke the officer and tied his hands with a tie and his feet with a dressing-gown cord. They lifted him from the bed and managed to carry him down a corridor. But during the incident, the hearing was told, the officer's boxer shorts were torn and he ended up naked. He was also left with abrasions to his elbow and knee.
Lt Col Frend added: 'With three people lifting there was a struggle and he suffered injuries.'
He said once the soldiers realised that the officer was in a drunken stupor himself, they carried him back to his room.
The hearing was told that Corporal Kingswood was an 'exemplary' soldier with eight years' service and regarded as one of the best in the regiment.
The other two defendants were also highly regarded.
Kingswood was fined £1,000 and the other two £700.
Assistant Judge Advocate General Paul Camp said: 'The second officer must bear some responsibility for what happened.'
Michael Waddington is a court martial lawyer - court martial attorney that defends military personnel worldwide as well as deployed civilian contractors subject to the UCMJ. He defends Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine, Coast Guard, and civilian contractor court martial cases. He has successfully defended military personnel as a court martial lawyer Army Navy Marine & Air Force court martials in Germany, England, San Diego, Norfolk, Jacksonville, Fort Bragg, Fort Jackson, Fort Stewart, Fort Gordon, Italy, Iraq, Kuwait, Korea, Okinawa, Japan, Yokota, and throughout the United States. military-defense-lawyer-recentcases.htm.
Court Martial Lawyer - Soldier’s trial date moves again
Court Martial Lawyer - Soldier’s trial date moves again
Daily Guide
Fort Leonard Wood, Mo. - The trial date for a Fort Leonard Wood Soldier has been moved.
The court martial for Spc. Jermaine Johnson was moved from June 29 through July 1 to Aug. 27-29 at Fort Leonard Wood, with a motion’s hearing scheduled for June 30.
The court martial was originally set for May 18-20.
Johnson’s arraignment was held March 6 at Fort Leonard Wood where he was also advised of his rights with regard to the court martial. During the arraignment Johnson did not enter a plea, which, under the military justice process, preserves his right to make any and all motions available to him.
Johnson, 26, was apprehended Oct. 14 by the Army’s Criminal Investigation Command at Fort Leonard Wood in connection with the death of Myria Silva on or about Oct. 10.
Myria Silva, 23, was the spouse of Pfc. Benjamin Silva, who is assigned to the 4th Maneuver Enhancement Brigade at Fort Leonard Wood.
Charges against Spec. Jermaine Johnson include:
• Intent to deceive or provide false statements
• Premeditated murder
• One specification of sodomy against Myria Silva
• One specification of assault with intent to inflict grievous bodily harm against Myria Silva
• One specification of adultery; one specification of kidnapping; and one specification of obstructing justice
If convicted of all charges, the maximum punishment is life in prison without parole.
Fort Leonard Wood officials emphasize that the charges constitute an accusation and that the accused is presumed innocent unless proven guilty.
Johnson, an Army reservist with the 7223 Medical Support Detachment 10 from Mobile, Ala., was serving in Fort Leonard Wood’s General Leonard Wood Army Community Hospital as a healthcare specialist.
Michael Waddington is a court martial lawyer - court martial attorney that defends military personnel worldwide as well as deployed civilian contractors subject to the UCMJ. He defends Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine, Coast Guard, and civilian contractor court martial cases. He has successfully defended military personnel as a court martial lawyer Army Navy Marine & Air Force court martials in Germany, England, San Diego, Norfolk, Jacksonville, Fort Bragg, Fort Jackson, Fort Stewart, Fort Gordon, Italy, Iraq, Kuwait, Korea, Okinawa, Japan, Yokota, and throughout the United States. military-defense-lawyer-recentcases.htm.
Daily Guide
Fort Leonard Wood, Mo. - The trial date for a Fort Leonard Wood Soldier has been moved.
The court martial for Spc. Jermaine Johnson was moved from June 29 through July 1 to Aug. 27-29 at Fort Leonard Wood, with a motion’s hearing scheduled for June 30.
The court martial was originally set for May 18-20.
Johnson’s arraignment was held March 6 at Fort Leonard Wood where he was also advised of his rights with regard to the court martial. During the arraignment Johnson did not enter a plea, which, under the military justice process, preserves his right to make any and all motions available to him.
Johnson, 26, was apprehended Oct. 14 by the Army’s Criminal Investigation Command at Fort Leonard Wood in connection with the death of Myria Silva on or about Oct. 10.
Myria Silva, 23, was the spouse of Pfc. Benjamin Silva, who is assigned to the 4th Maneuver Enhancement Brigade at Fort Leonard Wood.
Charges against Spec. Jermaine Johnson include:
• Intent to deceive or provide false statements
• Premeditated murder
• One specification of sodomy against Myria Silva
• One specification of assault with intent to inflict grievous bodily harm against Myria Silva
• One specification of adultery; one specification of kidnapping; and one specification of obstructing justice
If convicted of all charges, the maximum punishment is life in prison without parole.
Fort Leonard Wood officials emphasize that the charges constitute an accusation and that the accused is presumed innocent unless proven guilty.
Johnson, an Army reservist with the 7223 Medical Support Detachment 10 from Mobile, Ala., was serving in Fort Leonard Wood’s General Leonard Wood Army Community Hospital as a healthcare specialist.
Michael Waddington is a court martial lawyer - court martial attorney that defends military personnel worldwide as well as deployed civilian contractors subject to the UCMJ. He defends Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine, Coast Guard, and civilian contractor court martial cases. He has successfully defended military personnel as a court martial lawyer Army Navy Marine & Air Force court martials in Germany, England, San Diego, Norfolk, Jacksonville, Fort Bragg, Fort Jackson, Fort Stewart, Fort Gordon, Italy, Iraq, Kuwait, Korea, Okinawa, Japan, Yokota, and throughout the United States. military-defense-lawyer-recentcases.htm.
Court Martial Attorney - Ramstein airmen get jail in separate drug, alcohol cases
Court Martial Attorney - Ramstein airmen get jail in separate drug, alcohol cases
Stars and Stripes
Two airmen assigned to Ramstein Air Base, Germany, were handed jail sentences during separate trials last week in military court at Ramstein.
Airman Jeffery Jolliff, 23, of the 435th Security Forces Squadron, pleaded guilty to marijuana use, marijuana possession, psilocybin mushrooms possession and oxycodone use. The offenses occurred last year, on June 1 and Sept. 1, somewhere in Germany, according to officials with the 435th Air Base Wing Military Justice Division.
In a special court martial Friday, Jolliff was reduced in rank to E-1, handed a bad-conduct discharge and sentenced to three months of confinement.
Earlier in the week, in another special court-martial, Staff Sgt. Charles Truett, 29, of the 435th Civil Engineer Squadron, pleaded guilty to one count each of drunken driving and reckless driving.
According to military justice officials, Truett, in the early morning hours of Jan. 17, was driving on the wrong side of the B270 roadway in Kaiserslautern when he struck a taxi cab, injuring a local civilian. The victim’s neck injuries were not serious, officials said. Truett’s blood-alcohol content at the time was reported to be 1.55. The legal limit in Germany is 0.5.
Truett was reduced in rank to E-1, sentenced to 45 days in jail and ordered to forfeit $933 in pay.
Michael Waddington is a court martial lawyer - court martial attorney that defends military personnel worldwide as well as deployed civilian contractors subject to the UCMJ. He defends Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine, Coast Guard, and civilian contractor court martial cases. He has successfully defended military personnel as a court martial lawyer Army Navy Marine & Air Force court martials in Germany, England, San Diego, Norfolk, Jacksonville, Fort Bragg, Fort Jackson, Fort Stewart, Fort Gordon, Italy, Iraq, Kuwait, Korea, Okinawa, Japan, Yokota, and throughout the United States. military-defense-lawyer-recentcases.htm.
Stars and Stripes
Two airmen assigned to Ramstein Air Base, Germany, were handed jail sentences during separate trials last week in military court at Ramstein.
Airman Jeffery Jolliff, 23, of the 435th Security Forces Squadron, pleaded guilty to marijuana use, marijuana possession, psilocybin mushrooms possession and oxycodone use. The offenses occurred last year, on June 1 and Sept. 1, somewhere in Germany, according to officials with the 435th Air Base Wing Military Justice Division.
In a special court martial Friday, Jolliff was reduced in rank to E-1, handed a bad-conduct discharge and sentenced to three months of confinement.
Earlier in the week, in another special court-martial, Staff Sgt. Charles Truett, 29, of the 435th Civil Engineer Squadron, pleaded guilty to one count each of drunken driving and reckless driving.
According to military justice officials, Truett, in the early morning hours of Jan. 17, was driving on the wrong side of the B270 roadway in Kaiserslautern when he struck a taxi cab, injuring a local civilian. The victim’s neck injuries were not serious, officials said. Truett’s blood-alcohol content at the time was reported to be 1.55. The legal limit in Germany is 0.5.
Truett was reduced in rank to E-1, sentenced to 45 days in jail and ordered to forfeit $933 in pay.
Michael Waddington is a court martial lawyer - court martial attorney that defends military personnel worldwide as well as deployed civilian contractors subject to the UCMJ. He defends Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine, Coast Guard, and civilian contractor court martial cases. He has successfully defended military personnel as a court martial lawyer Army Navy Marine & Air Force court martials in Germany, England, San Diego, Norfolk, Jacksonville, Fort Bragg, Fort Jackson, Fort Stewart, Fort Gordon, Italy, Iraq, Kuwait, Korea, Okinawa, Japan, Yokota, and throughout the United States. military-defense-lawyer-recentcases.htm.
Court Martial Lawyer - Fort Bliss Garrison Commander Talks About Zimmerman Case
Court Martial Lawyer - Fort Bliss Garrison Commander Talks About Zimmerman Case
Monica Balderrama-KFOX News Reporter
EL PASO, Texas -- Fort Bliss Garrison Commander Col. Edward Manning talked to KFOX about the latest on the Frank Zimmerman case and his punishment.
As KFOX reported, Spc. Zimmerman who is charged with animal cruelty received an official reprimand by Manning, himself in April. Zimmerman is accused of stomping on the neck of his dog Tinkerbell and breaking his other dog, Wrigley's, hind leg.
Manning was criticized by animal-rights advocates for disciplining Zimmerman under Article 15 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, which is a non-judicial punishment.
Manning said legal council advised him to discipline Zimmerman under Article 15. Manning said, because of the severity of the offense, the reprimand was done by himself, a colonel, because a colonel would be able to use tools for discipline as opposed to a captain.
Manning explained that when Zimmerman was read his charges and his rights and he had several options. He could have appealed the charges or he could have requested a trial by court martial, which would mean he would get more rights to present his case but on the flip side the punishment could be more severe.
Zimmerman did not appeal and he didn't opt for a court- martial, so Manning went forward with Article 15, which we know included losing his rank and facing a less-than honorable discharge.
Now, the next step is the procedure to separate him from the Army.
"The board is coming. He gets a chance to be represented by council, as does the government to present his case to a panel officers who will then vote and decide whether or not he should get retained in the Army, whether he should be discharged and what type of discharge," said Manning.
Manning said Zimmerman is still at Fort Bliss, staying at the barracks, he only has monitored visits with his wife and child and continues to take anger management classes, as he awaits his court proceedings.
Michael Waddington is a court martial lawyer - court martial attorney that defends military personnel worldwide as well as deployed civilian contractors subject to the UCMJ. He defends Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine, Coast Guard, and civilian contractor court martial cases. He has successfully defended military personnel as a court martial lawyer Army Navy Marine & Air Force court martials in Germany, England, San Diego, Norfolk, Jacksonville, Fort Bragg, Fort Jackson, Fort Stewart, Fort Gordon, Italy, Iraq, Kuwait, Korea, Okinawa, Japan, Yokota, and throughout the United States. military-defense-lawyer-recentcases.htm.
Monica Balderrama-KFOX News Reporter
EL PASO, Texas -- Fort Bliss Garrison Commander Col. Edward Manning talked to KFOX about the latest on the Frank Zimmerman case and his punishment.
As KFOX reported, Spc. Zimmerman who is charged with animal cruelty received an official reprimand by Manning, himself in April. Zimmerman is accused of stomping on the neck of his dog Tinkerbell and breaking his other dog, Wrigley's, hind leg.
Manning was criticized by animal-rights advocates for disciplining Zimmerman under Article 15 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, which is a non-judicial punishment.
Manning said legal council advised him to discipline Zimmerman under Article 15. Manning said, because of the severity of the offense, the reprimand was done by himself, a colonel, because a colonel would be able to use tools for discipline as opposed to a captain.
Manning explained that when Zimmerman was read his charges and his rights and he had several options. He could have appealed the charges or he could have requested a trial by court martial, which would mean he would get more rights to present his case but on the flip side the punishment could be more severe.
Zimmerman did not appeal and he didn't opt for a court- martial, so Manning went forward with Article 15, which we know included losing his rank and facing a less-than honorable discharge.
Now, the next step is the procedure to separate him from the Army.
"The board is coming. He gets a chance to be represented by council, as does the government to present his case to a panel officers who will then vote and decide whether or not he should get retained in the Army, whether he should be discharged and what type of discharge," said Manning.
Manning said Zimmerman is still at Fort Bliss, staying at the barracks, he only has monitored visits with his wife and child and continues to take anger management classes, as he awaits his court proceedings.
Michael Waddington is a court martial lawyer - court martial attorney that defends military personnel worldwide as well as deployed civilian contractors subject to the UCMJ. He defends Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine, Coast Guard, and civilian contractor court martial cases. He has successfully defended military personnel as a court martial lawyer Army Navy Marine & Air Force court martials in Germany, England, San Diego, Norfolk, Jacksonville, Fort Bragg, Fort Jackson, Fort Stewart, Fort Gordon, Italy, Iraq, Kuwait, Korea, Okinawa, Japan, Yokota, and throughout the United States. military-defense-lawyer-recentcases.htm.
Court Martial Lawyer - AWOL soldier faces court-martial
Court Martial Lawyer - AWOL soldier faces court-martial
By Krisy Gashler
The AWOL Fort Drum soldier who asked Ithaca's Common Council for support last December is facing a July 1 court martial and the prospect of dishonorable discharge and a year in prison.
U.S. Army Specialist Stephen Trevor Loope served a 15-month tour of duty in Afghanistan in 2006-07, where he said he was subjected to mental abuse and intimidation by his peers and superiors and physical problems that went undiagnosed for six months while he was on the front lines.
Upon his return to Fort Drum, Loope said he sought out mental health treatment but was told there was nothing wrong with him.
In November 2007, after surgery for the physical problems, Loope said the threats from his unit drove him "over the edge." He went absent without leave and returned home to Texas, where he sought help from a clinical psychologist in Houston. Loope was diagnosed with severe post-traumatic stress disorder and major depression.
In December 2008, Loope appeared before Ithaca's Common Council, asking for letters of support as he returned to Fort Drum. He was led to Ithaca by a Common Council resolution passed in October 2008 designating the city a "Community of Sanctuary" for veterans opposed to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Loope and his attorney, Tod Ensign of the New York City-based advocacy organization Citizen Soldier, reported in late December that Loope looked to be headed toward an administrative discharge. A medical administrative discharge would mean Loope would serve no jail time and he could keep his veterans' medical benefits, Ensign said.
Ensign said he has represented five other soldiers with similar circumstances, none of whom were prosecuted or served jail time. Another AWOL soldier who returned around the same time as Loope and with similar circumstances was given 30 days in jail then administratively discharged, Ensign said.
Loope, whose case has generated publicity throughout central New York, is facing a July 1 court-martial, he said.
"What this is really all about is making an example out of him," Ensign said. "They want to send the message to young soldiers, 'Don't think you can just leave here, come back and be discharged. We're going to make people who do that pay.' And that's what they're doing here, because he's got a very strong psychological evaluation," suggesting he should be medically discharged, Ensign said.
Loope underwent an Army- mandated Sanity Board hearing Friday, during which two Army psychologists interviewed Loope for two hours, Ensign said. Out of that hearing, the psychologists will give a joint diagnosis, which will be used in the court-martial hearing, he said.
Calls to Fort Drum spokespeople were not returned Friday.
Michael Waddington is a court martial lawyer - court martial attorney that defends military personnel worldwide as well as deployed civilian contractors subject to the UCMJ. He defends Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine, Coast Guard, and civilian contractor court martial cases. He has successfully defended military personnel as a court martial lawyer Army Navy Marine & Air Force court martials in Germany, England, San Diego, Norfolk, Jacksonville, Fort Bragg, Fort Jackson, Fort Stewart, Fort Gordon, Italy, Iraq, Kuwait, Korea, Okinawa, Japan, Yokota, and throughout the United States. military-defense-lawyer-recentcases.htm.
By Krisy Gashler
The AWOL Fort Drum soldier who asked Ithaca's Common Council for support last December is facing a July 1 court martial and the prospect of dishonorable discharge and a year in prison.
U.S. Army Specialist Stephen Trevor Loope served a 15-month tour of duty in Afghanistan in 2006-07, where he said he was subjected to mental abuse and intimidation by his peers and superiors and physical problems that went undiagnosed for six months while he was on the front lines.
Upon his return to Fort Drum, Loope said he sought out mental health treatment but was told there was nothing wrong with him.
In November 2007, after surgery for the physical problems, Loope said the threats from his unit drove him "over the edge." He went absent without leave and returned home to Texas, where he sought help from a clinical psychologist in Houston. Loope was diagnosed with severe post-traumatic stress disorder and major depression.
In December 2008, Loope appeared before Ithaca's Common Council, asking for letters of support as he returned to Fort Drum. He was led to Ithaca by a Common Council resolution passed in October 2008 designating the city a "Community of Sanctuary" for veterans opposed to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Loope and his attorney, Tod Ensign of the New York City-based advocacy organization Citizen Soldier, reported in late December that Loope looked to be headed toward an administrative discharge. A medical administrative discharge would mean Loope would serve no jail time and he could keep his veterans' medical benefits, Ensign said.
Ensign said he has represented five other soldiers with similar circumstances, none of whom were prosecuted or served jail time. Another AWOL soldier who returned around the same time as Loope and with similar circumstances was given 30 days in jail then administratively discharged, Ensign said.
Loope, whose case has generated publicity throughout central New York, is facing a July 1 court-martial, he said.
"What this is really all about is making an example out of him," Ensign said. "They want to send the message to young soldiers, 'Don't think you can just leave here, come back and be discharged. We're going to make people who do that pay.' And that's what they're doing here, because he's got a very strong psychological evaluation," suggesting he should be medically discharged, Ensign said.
Loope underwent an Army- mandated Sanity Board hearing Friday, during which two Army psychologists interviewed Loope for two hours, Ensign said. Out of that hearing, the psychologists will give a joint diagnosis, which will be used in the court-martial hearing, he said.
Calls to Fort Drum spokespeople were not returned Friday.
Michael Waddington is a court martial lawyer - court martial attorney that defends military personnel worldwide as well as deployed civilian contractors subject to the UCMJ. He defends Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine, Coast Guard, and civilian contractor court martial cases. He has successfully defended military personnel as a court martial lawyer Army Navy Marine & Air Force court martials in Germany, England, San Diego, Norfolk, Jacksonville, Fort Bragg, Fort Jackson, Fort Stewart, Fort Gordon, Italy, Iraq, Kuwait, Korea, Okinawa, Japan, Yokota, and throughout the United States. military-defense-lawyer-recentcases.htm.
Court Martial Lawyer - Wilcox court martial this week
Court Martial Lawyer - Wilcox court martial this week
The Cape Breton Post
SYDNEY — The voir dire proceedings in the Cpl. Matthew Wilcox court martial have ended and the trial, with a five-member military panel, is expected to get begin Tuesday at 10 a.m.
Wilcox, 23, of Glace Bay, a member of the 2nd Battalion of the Nova Scotia Highlanders, faces charges of manslaughter, criminal negligence causing death and negligent performance of duty in relation to the shooting death of Cpl. Kevin Megeney in Afghanistan in March 2007.
Wilcox and Megeney, who is from Stellarton, Pictou County, were alone in a tent on the Kandahar airfield base when a single shot was fired from Wilcox’s army-issued handgun.
Military judge Cmdr. Peter Lamont imposed a publication ban at the beginning of the voir dire hearing June 1.
Lawyers for both the prosecution and defence successfully presented arguments on the merits of a ban as the National Defence Act does not contain any provisions providing for a media blackout during this phase of the trial when the judge hears the admissibility of evidence.
The trial is being held at the Victoria Park Garrison in Sydney.
Michael Waddington is a court martial lawyer - court martial attorney that defends military personnel worldwide as well as deployed civilian contractors subject to the UCMJ. He defends Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine, Coast Guard, and civilian contractor court martial cases. He has successfully defended military personnel as a court martial lawyer Army Navy Marine & Air Force court martials in Germany, England, San Diego, Norfolk, Jacksonville, Fort Bragg, Fort Jackson, Fort Stewart, Fort Gordon, Italy, Iraq, Kuwait, Korea, Okinawa, Japan, Yokota, and throughout the United States. military-defense-lawyer-recentcases.htm.
The Cape Breton Post
SYDNEY — The voir dire proceedings in the Cpl. Matthew Wilcox court martial have ended and the trial, with a five-member military panel, is expected to get begin Tuesday at 10 a.m.
Wilcox, 23, of Glace Bay, a member of the 2nd Battalion of the Nova Scotia Highlanders, faces charges of manslaughter, criminal negligence causing death and negligent performance of duty in relation to the shooting death of Cpl. Kevin Megeney in Afghanistan in March 2007.
Wilcox and Megeney, who is from Stellarton, Pictou County, were alone in a tent on the Kandahar airfield base when a single shot was fired from Wilcox’s army-issued handgun.
Military judge Cmdr. Peter Lamont imposed a publication ban at the beginning of the voir dire hearing June 1.
Lawyers for both the prosecution and defence successfully presented arguments on the merits of a ban as the National Defence Act does not contain any provisions providing for a media blackout during this phase of the trial when the judge hears the admissibility of evidence.
The trial is being held at the Victoria Park Garrison in Sydney.
Michael Waddington is a court martial lawyer - court martial attorney that defends military personnel worldwide as well as deployed civilian contractors subject to the UCMJ. He defends Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine, Coast Guard, and civilian contractor court martial cases. He has successfully defended military personnel as a court martial lawyer Army Navy Marine & Air Force court martials in Germany, England, San Diego, Norfolk, Jacksonville, Fort Bragg, Fort Jackson, Fort Stewart, Fort Gordon, Italy, Iraq, Kuwait, Korea, Okinawa, Japan, Yokota, and throughout the United States. military-defense-lawyer-recentcases.htm.
Court Martial Lawyer - Murder at Thar Thar
Court Martial Lawyer - Murder at Thar Thar
Moncks Corner native Corey Clagett is serving 18 years at Fort Leavenworth for the murder of Iraqis he says a sergeant ordered him to commit
By Bo Petersen - The Post and Courier
Courts-martial in the killings
--Army Pvt. Corey Clagett, pleaded guilty to murder, attempted murder, conspiracy and obstruction of justice, 18 years.
--Pvt. William Hunsaker, pleaded guilty to murder, attempted murder, conspiracy and obstruction of justice, 18 years.
--Sgt. Raymond Girouard, convicted of negligent homicide, obstruction of justice and conspiracy to obstruct justice, 10 years.
--Spc. Juston Graber, pleaded guilty to aggravated assault, nine months.
Clagett's words
Corey Clagett, in his court martial testimony:
"(Sgt. Girouard) said we were going to kill the detainees, cut the zip ties off, and make it look like they ran, and he said Hunsaker and Clagett were going to do it. I didn't say anything. Hunsaker didn't say anything."
"I pulled the blindfold up on one guy, down on the other. Hunsaker took his off (a detainee). Hunsaker told them to 'Run.' I told them 'Yalla' to get them to run faster. They didn't run faster, so I raised my weapon. Hunsaker raised his. He shot, then I shot."
"The way Sgt. G ran his squad, I thought it was basically like an initiation, if I wanted to be in 3rd squad."
"(Girouard) shut the (Humvee) door, locked it, booby-trap locked it, then double booby-trap locked it and said if I ever say anything — he put his weapon to me and he said, if I say anything that he will kill me."
"That is what the Army is, is a big gang."
Editor's Note: The account of the Thar Thar Canal incident below was compiled from interviews and testimony given at the courts-martial of Pvt. Corey Clagett, Sgt. Raymond Girouard and Pvt. William Hunsaker.
The voice crackling on the radio demanded to know why three Iraqi captives were alive. Minutes later, the three lay dying on the ground and a light machine gun vibrated in Army Pvt. Corey Clagett's hands.
He had dropped from a helicopter and stumbled onto the searing desert floor near the dry bed of Thar Thar Canal, his ammo belt spilling as he hit the ground. He was on his first mission with his second combat platoon after getting kicked out of his first.
He was told to shoot to kill.
It was May 9, 2006. Clagett was 21. He'd grown up scrapping in Moncks Corner, "a wild child," in the words of a relative. He was a smart aleck who liked being the center of attention. He tinkered with cars. He would take things apart just to put them back together.
He was a mess of contradictions in a third-generation military family, the child of a broken marriage. He stuck up for his mother and was beaten with her when the men she dated or lived with beat her. He sent his Army paychecks home to her rather than to the wife he left behind. His mother wore a gold necklace engraved with a ring of hearts he gave her.
"He's a little full of himself, but he has this gentleness to him. I can't see him going out and hurting someone unless it was self- defense," Ericka Tucker, a family friend, said after Clagett was charged in the killing.
"He grew up in turmoil, physically abused, mentally abused, emotionally scarred," said an attorney who defended him.
Clagett considered himself a good soldier who followed orders. He pleaded guilty in January 2007 to the murders of two of the Iraqi captives in a plea bargain to avoid a possible life sentence.
Today, Clagett is in the U.S. Disciplinary Barracks at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., serving an 18-year sentence.
What happened to Corey Clagett?
Blistering hot
Thar Thar is a lake region northwest of Baghdad toward Tikrit, Saddam Hussein's hometown, and in 2006 a hotbed of the Sunni insurgency. In February of that year, the golden-dome mosque in the nearby city of Samarra was blown up, igniting rioting and killings.
The area is home to the Muthanna Chemical Complex, where Saddam's Baath Party manufactured chemical and biological weapons.
In May 2006, two informants told the Army there were 20 known insurgents on a small island in a canal there. Clagett's squad was ordered in. The attack was part of a larger assault, Operation Iron Triangle, involving more than 400 U.S. troops over about 50 square miles. Troops went house to house for two days and captured more than 200 suspected insurgents, the Army Times reported. It is unclear how many prisoners were taken during the island attack. But at least four Iraqis were killed.
"We're going to hit the ground shooting and kill all the al-Qaeda and Iraqi insurgents," Lt. Justin Wehrheim testified in the trials. "We were to positively identify and kill any military-age male on the island."
But in Iraq's countryside, telling an insurgent from a farmer wasn't easy. Nearly everyone had a gun or two at home to protect his family. Americans were not necessarily considered the good guys.
Squad members testified that they were told to expect a "hot" landing with enemy fire. They went in at dawn on May 9, with the desert heat already blistering.
Fighting back
Clagett never really knew his father. He was raised by his granddad, Kenneth Miller, who took custody of him for a time when he was young. His father was in the Army, serving at the Panama Canal.
"(His father) was never at the house unless he was on vacation for a week, and then he'd get his wife pregnant again and he would leave," Miller testified at Clagett's sentencing hearing.
Clagett's mother, Melanie Dianiska, had three children in diapers by the time she was 18. When the boys were older, Joseph, the younger son, used to say, "I have no dad." Corey stuck up for Joseph at school, pushing off the bullies. He'd say they didn't need a dad.
Clagett struggled in school. He fought back if somebody said the wrong thing about him or his family. He was moved to an alternative school, a trade school, and at 16 began a work program in heating and air conditioning.
He married the same day as his older brother Jamie. They joined the Army and went to boot camp together. The family tells the story of how, when Jamie fell behind on a 30-mile hike with badly blistered feet, Corey picked him up and carried him until the sergeants stopped him.
Three months after Corey joined the Army, he was sent to Iraq. Eight months later, the order came to attack Thar Thar. Just that week, he had been reassigned to Sgt. Raymond Girouard's squad.
Clagett felt he had something to prove.
Notching a kill
Clagett picked up his dropped ammo belt off the burning sand and ran from the helicopter toward a farmhouse along the dry bed of Thar Thar Canal, chasing other squad members who already had opened fire.
"We all bail off the chopper, and as we are coming off, Sergeant Girouard, he's the first in the lead and he lays down suppressive fire," Pvt. William Hunsaker testified during Girouard's trial. "As we are running by the house we are firing rounds through the window and at the house itself."
In eight months, Clagett had not notched a kill, and in the 3rd Brigade, that counted against you. The commander of the 3rd Brigade of the 187th Infantry of the 101st Airborne Division was Col. Michael Steele. He was awarded a Bronze Star with Valor in 1993 for captaining 120 Army Rangers who were pinned down for 15 hours after their helicopters were shot down during a raid in Mogadishu, Somalia — the raid portrayed in the movie, "Black Hawk Down."
His force had a reputation.
"It's been alleged that Colonel Steele gave commemorative knives and coins in exchange for kills of Iraqis," Clagett's attorney told the military judge during the court-martial. The attorney was trying to get a copy of a reprimand given to Steele for his actions regarding Operation Iron Triangle, the attack during which the Thar Thar Canal raid took place.
In August 2006, the Los Angeles Times reported that investigators were trying to determine if Steele created a "kill count" expectation among troops, essentially a running competition to kill Iraqis.
Cpl. Brandon Helton testified that commanders told soldiers to rack up enemy kills. A message board at the headquarters had a phrase on the bottom that read, "Let the bodies hit the floor." Kill scores were posted on company boards.
One soldier testified that after kills, Girouard told his troops, "That's another terrorist down. Good job."
None of this is all that egregious or unusual among combat troops; it's kill or be killed, and an aggressive mind-set can make the difference between life and death. But in a speech before the raid, Steele ordered his troops to kill all military-age males, according to testimony in the trial. Clagett's prosecutor described it as "a little hoo-hah speech." His defense described it as the rules of engagement — orders given the soldiers.
Steele invoked a military privilege given commanding officers not to be required to testify at the four squad members' courts-martial.
After the raid, Brig. Gen. Thomas Maffey said that Steele told soldiers it wasn't necessary to distinguish noncombatants during the mission, The New York Times reported. The Times, attributing the information to Army sources, said Steele was reprimanded; the reprimand never was made public.
But the mind-set was there.
'An initiation'
Clagett was in a tough spot. He had moved to Girouard's squad with Girouard's help because he couldn't get along with a new sergeant assigned to his old squad.
Prosecutors called the move a rehab assignment. Clagett testified in Girouard's trial that he felt he needed to do something to impress the squad.
Then he hit the desert sand and dropped his ammo.
Meanwhile, Girouard raced toward the first house, leading the squad and firing as he ran. A man appeared in the window, and the gunfire cut him down. The squad went through the door with rifles raised and found two women holding up their hands in surrender while three men cowered behind them. The man shot in the window turned out to be an unarmed older man. He was dead.
Clagett, meanwhile, moved on top of a berm to keep watch and shouted, "I've got another house." Girouard yelled at him to give the direction and distance according to training, then took some of the squad over to that house. The rest of them handcuffed the three men with "zip ties," plastic handcuffs that can be pulled apart if enough force is used. They took them outside and laid them on their bellies in the sand.
In the house, they found kitchenware, two AK-47 rifles, a pistol and ammunition.
When the rest of the squad reached the second house, a man came out holding a baby in front of him. Angered by his cowardice, the squad roughed him up. Girouard told them to take him back inside, away from the combat photographer.
Returning to the first house, Girouard heard the radio transmission from 1st Sgt. Eric Geressy: "Why do we have three (expletive) that should be dead?"
At the house, Girouard called a meeting, according to testimony of his squad members. He huddled them up and told them Hunsaker and Clagett were going to shoot the prisoners. Hunsaker testified that Girouard said, "First sergeant is pretty pissed that these guys ain't dead and he wants to know how come they're not dead. Make it look good." Girouard testified that Hunsaker wanted to kill the prisoners.
One of the soldiers, Sgt. Leonel Lemus, shook his head no and walked to the door, where he and Girouard stared each other down, Lemus said. During his trial, Girouard denied ordering the killing. Lemus wavered under cross-examination whether the order was to kill or just to rough them up. The others testified that the order was to kill.
"The way Sgt. G ran his squad, I thought it was basically like an initiation, if I wanted to be in 3rd squad," Clagett testified. Girouard cut Hunsaker with a knife to make it look like Hunsaker was attacked by the prisoners, according to testimony. Girouard asked who wanted to get cut, and Clagett said, "Not me."
Girouard then left to meet up with another sergeant. Clagett said Hunsaker told him, "I want to kill these (expletive) because they're terrorists."
"I pulled the blindfold up on one guy, down on the other," Clagett testified at his trial, and Hunsaker took the blindfold off the third man. "Hunsaker told them to run. I told them 'Yalla,' to get them to run faster. They didn't run faster, so I raised my weapon. Hunsaker raised his. He shot, then I shot."
Hunsaker testified that he was upset with Clagett because he sprayed fire, slinging the machine gun back and forth, rather than trying to shoot as accurately as possible. Clagett said he had his eyes closed.
"As soon as they fell, I took off my K-pot (helmet) and dropped my weapon," Clagett testified.
Apart at the seams
Clagett was about to wrestle with the devil.
Lemus testified at the later trial that when the shooting stopped, Hunsaker said, "Oh, s---."
Girouard, the squad leader, came running back to the house. He sucker-punched Clagett to make it look like the private had been attacked by the men, Clagett testified, just like he had cut Hunsaker earlier. Lemus ran up and asked Girouard what happened. "But he (Girouard) couldn't answer. He just looked at the bodies and had this frozen look on his face," Lemus testified.
Spc. Juston Graber rushed up to the shot Iraqis. One was vomiting blood and struggling to breathe. Graber later testified that Girouard told him to "put him out of his misery." He had to fire twice at point-blank range to hit the man's head.
By May 11, Army criminal investigators were on base asking questions. Two weeks later, the squad was filling out sworn statements on the incident, saying the Iraqis were terrorists trying to escape. And Clagett was coming apart.
He had boasted around the camp, soldiers testified, telling people he had gotten punched, spun in a circle and just sprayed bullets. The word was going around that Hunsaker had used the bodies for target practice throwing "stars," a piercing weapon. Sgt. Brian Hensley testified that Clagett told him he had gotten his first kill and "the beebs" (Iraqis) could do "the Harlem shake." Clagett demonstrated the dance by slinging his machine gun, waving his arms and shaking his hips like a man quivering as he fell, Hensley said.
But a few other soldiers said Clagett told them what happened and was visibly disturbed. Lemus testified that the story was going around base: "Yeah, you know, 3rd squad went in and executed everybody and these guys were like Johnny Rambo out there." Lemus said one of them was having nightmares and couldn't stop talking about it.
Girouard brought the squad together again and told them "to be loyal and not to go bragging or spreading rumors," Lemus testified. "If he found out who told anything about it he would find that person after he got out of jail and kill him."
'Did as I was told'
The Thar Thar incident was one in a series of allegations that came to light that year of U.S. soldiers raping and killing Iraqis. In the wake of the Abu Ghraib prisoner torture scandal, the accusations lit an already smoldering outrage among Americans, as well as Iraqis.
The heat was on, and the investigators were turning up the burner. Wehrheim, the lieutenant, told Girouard to tell the squad to get their stories straight, Girouard testified.
Investigators pressed the squad, hauling them in one by one for 12-hour "overnights" of interrogation when the soldiers returned from a rotation of three days on combat patrol and three days guarding outposts. They threatened Lemus, saying he could be charged with manslaughter in the death of the old man in the window.
On June 15, they broke Spc. Bradley Mason, a 19-year-old. As a result, Graber admitted to the "mercy" killing. The others were brought in and arrested.
Clagett was put in solitary confinement. He, Girouard and Hunsaker continued to insist the Iraqis broke free and were shot trying to escape. At trial, Clagett's attorney said Clagett was having problems sleeping, nightmares, crying spells and trouble eating.
"He has had to live in a cage. He has had to live in segregation. He has had to live in 24-hour lockup. He has had to live with people spitting in his food and accusing him of being a criminal and calling him an animal and a criminal," the attorney said.
Hunsaker broke next and pleaded guilty in an agreement to testify against the other men. "I got tired of lying to everybody," he said, "and I didn't want to spend the rest of my life in prison for, in my eyes, three dead terrorists."
With Hunsaker's testimony against him, Clagett almost certainly would be found guilty, his attorney told him. He could face life in prison. Clagett pleaded guilty in January 2008. At Clagett's sentencing, he read a poem he had written. In part it said:
Only God knows my heart and the hatred of men,
I can try to explain it, but I can't start or begin.
To the families of Iraq I pray to end this war,
I only did as I was told to complete my tour.
Epilogue
Clagett's cell at Fort Leavenworth is taller than it is wide. It contains a cot, table, sink and toilet. The military "barracks" is the only maximum-security prison in the Department of Defense.
A bid for clemency failed. His appeal failed.
In a letter, Clagett described his life as tedium, doing the same thing over and over and eating the same food over and over. He said his morale is low. He will be eligible for parole consideration in 2 1/2 years.
Michael Waddington is a court martial lawyer - court martial attorney that defends military personnel worldwide as well as deployed civilian contractors subject to the UCMJ. He defends Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine, Coast Guard, and civilian contractor court martial cases. He has successfully defended military personnel as a court martial lawyer Army Navy Marine & Air Force court martials in Germany, England, San Diego, Norfolk, Jacksonville, Fort Bragg, Fort Jackson, Fort Stewart, Fort Gordon, Italy, Iraq, Kuwait, Korea, Okinawa, Japan, Yokota, and throughout the United States. military-defense-lawyer-recentcases.htm.
Moncks Corner native Corey Clagett is serving 18 years at Fort Leavenworth for the murder of Iraqis he says a sergeant ordered him to commit
By Bo Petersen - The Post and Courier
Courts-martial in the killings
--Army Pvt. Corey Clagett, pleaded guilty to murder, attempted murder, conspiracy and obstruction of justice, 18 years.
--Pvt. William Hunsaker, pleaded guilty to murder, attempted murder, conspiracy and obstruction of justice, 18 years.
--Sgt. Raymond Girouard, convicted of negligent homicide, obstruction of justice and conspiracy to obstruct justice, 10 years.
--Spc. Juston Graber, pleaded guilty to aggravated assault, nine months.
Clagett's words
Corey Clagett, in his court martial testimony:
"(Sgt. Girouard) said we were going to kill the detainees, cut the zip ties off, and make it look like they ran, and he said Hunsaker and Clagett were going to do it. I didn't say anything. Hunsaker didn't say anything."
"I pulled the blindfold up on one guy, down on the other. Hunsaker took his off (a detainee). Hunsaker told them to 'Run.' I told them 'Yalla' to get them to run faster. They didn't run faster, so I raised my weapon. Hunsaker raised his. He shot, then I shot."
"The way Sgt. G ran his squad, I thought it was basically like an initiation, if I wanted to be in 3rd squad."
"(Girouard) shut the (Humvee) door, locked it, booby-trap locked it, then double booby-trap locked it and said if I ever say anything — he put his weapon to me and he said, if I say anything that he will kill me."
"That is what the Army is, is a big gang."
Editor's Note: The account of the Thar Thar Canal incident below was compiled from interviews and testimony given at the courts-martial of Pvt. Corey Clagett, Sgt. Raymond Girouard and Pvt. William Hunsaker.
The voice crackling on the radio demanded to know why three Iraqi captives were alive. Minutes later, the three lay dying on the ground and a light machine gun vibrated in Army Pvt. Corey Clagett's hands.
He had dropped from a helicopter and stumbled onto the searing desert floor near the dry bed of Thar Thar Canal, his ammo belt spilling as he hit the ground. He was on his first mission with his second combat platoon after getting kicked out of his first.
He was told to shoot to kill.
It was May 9, 2006. Clagett was 21. He'd grown up scrapping in Moncks Corner, "a wild child," in the words of a relative. He was a smart aleck who liked being the center of attention. He tinkered with cars. He would take things apart just to put them back together.
He was a mess of contradictions in a third-generation military family, the child of a broken marriage. He stuck up for his mother and was beaten with her when the men she dated or lived with beat her. He sent his Army paychecks home to her rather than to the wife he left behind. His mother wore a gold necklace engraved with a ring of hearts he gave her.
"He's a little full of himself, but he has this gentleness to him. I can't see him going out and hurting someone unless it was self- defense," Ericka Tucker, a family friend, said after Clagett was charged in the killing.
"He grew up in turmoil, physically abused, mentally abused, emotionally scarred," said an attorney who defended him.
Clagett considered himself a good soldier who followed orders. He pleaded guilty in January 2007 to the murders of two of the Iraqi captives in a plea bargain to avoid a possible life sentence.
Today, Clagett is in the U.S. Disciplinary Barracks at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., serving an 18-year sentence.
What happened to Corey Clagett?
Blistering hot
Thar Thar is a lake region northwest of Baghdad toward Tikrit, Saddam Hussein's hometown, and in 2006 a hotbed of the Sunni insurgency. In February of that year, the golden-dome mosque in the nearby city of Samarra was blown up, igniting rioting and killings.
The area is home to the Muthanna Chemical Complex, where Saddam's Baath Party manufactured chemical and biological weapons.
In May 2006, two informants told the Army there were 20 known insurgents on a small island in a canal there. Clagett's squad was ordered in. The attack was part of a larger assault, Operation Iron Triangle, involving more than 400 U.S. troops over about 50 square miles. Troops went house to house for two days and captured more than 200 suspected insurgents, the Army Times reported. It is unclear how many prisoners were taken during the island attack. But at least four Iraqis were killed.
"We're going to hit the ground shooting and kill all the al-Qaeda and Iraqi insurgents," Lt. Justin Wehrheim testified in the trials. "We were to positively identify and kill any military-age male on the island."
But in Iraq's countryside, telling an insurgent from a farmer wasn't easy. Nearly everyone had a gun or two at home to protect his family. Americans were not necessarily considered the good guys.
Squad members testified that they were told to expect a "hot" landing with enemy fire. They went in at dawn on May 9, with the desert heat already blistering.
Fighting back
Clagett never really knew his father. He was raised by his granddad, Kenneth Miller, who took custody of him for a time when he was young. His father was in the Army, serving at the Panama Canal.
"(His father) was never at the house unless he was on vacation for a week, and then he'd get his wife pregnant again and he would leave," Miller testified at Clagett's sentencing hearing.
Clagett's mother, Melanie Dianiska, had three children in diapers by the time she was 18. When the boys were older, Joseph, the younger son, used to say, "I have no dad." Corey stuck up for Joseph at school, pushing off the bullies. He'd say they didn't need a dad.
Clagett struggled in school. He fought back if somebody said the wrong thing about him or his family. He was moved to an alternative school, a trade school, and at 16 began a work program in heating and air conditioning.
He married the same day as his older brother Jamie. They joined the Army and went to boot camp together. The family tells the story of how, when Jamie fell behind on a 30-mile hike with badly blistered feet, Corey picked him up and carried him until the sergeants stopped him.
Three months after Corey joined the Army, he was sent to Iraq. Eight months later, the order came to attack Thar Thar. Just that week, he had been reassigned to Sgt. Raymond Girouard's squad.
Clagett felt he had something to prove.
Notching a kill
Clagett picked up his dropped ammo belt off the burning sand and ran from the helicopter toward a farmhouse along the dry bed of Thar Thar Canal, chasing other squad members who already had opened fire.
"We all bail off the chopper, and as we are coming off, Sergeant Girouard, he's the first in the lead and he lays down suppressive fire," Pvt. William Hunsaker testified during Girouard's trial. "As we are running by the house we are firing rounds through the window and at the house itself."
In eight months, Clagett had not notched a kill, and in the 3rd Brigade, that counted against you. The commander of the 3rd Brigade of the 187th Infantry of the 101st Airborne Division was Col. Michael Steele. He was awarded a Bronze Star with Valor in 1993 for captaining 120 Army Rangers who were pinned down for 15 hours after their helicopters were shot down during a raid in Mogadishu, Somalia — the raid portrayed in the movie, "Black Hawk Down."
His force had a reputation.
"It's been alleged that Colonel Steele gave commemorative knives and coins in exchange for kills of Iraqis," Clagett's attorney told the military judge during the court-martial. The attorney was trying to get a copy of a reprimand given to Steele for his actions regarding Operation Iron Triangle, the attack during which the Thar Thar Canal raid took place.
In August 2006, the Los Angeles Times reported that investigators were trying to determine if Steele created a "kill count" expectation among troops, essentially a running competition to kill Iraqis.
Cpl. Brandon Helton testified that commanders told soldiers to rack up enemy kills. A message board at the headquarters had a phrase on the bottom that read, "Let the bodies hit the floor." Kill scores were posted on company boards.
One soldier testified that after kills, Girouard told his troops, "That's another terrorist down. Good job."
None of this is all that egregious or unusual among combat troops; it's kill or be killed, and an aggressive mind-set can make the difference between life and death. But in a speech before the raid, Steele ordered his troops to kill all military-age males, according to testimony in the trial. Clagett's prosecutor described it as "a little hoo-hah speech." His defense described it as the rules of engagement — orders given the soldiers.
Steele invoked a military privilege given commanding officers not to be required to testify at the four squad members' courts-martial.
After the raid, Brig. Gen. Thomas Maffey said that Steele told soldiers it wasn't necessary to distinguish noncombatants during the mission, The New York Times reported. The Times, attributing the information to Army sources, said Steele was reprimanded; the reprimand never was made public.
But the mind-set was there.
'An initiation'
Clagett was in a tough spot. He had moved to Girouard's squad with Girouard's help because he couldn't get along with a new sergeant assigned to his old squad.
Prosecutors called the move a rehab assignment. Clagett testified in Girouard's trial that he felt he needed to do something to impress the squad.
Then he hit the desert sand and dropped his ammo.
Meanwhile, Girouard raced toward the first house, leading the squad and firing as he ran. A man appeared in the window, and the gunfire cut him down. The squad went through the door with rifles raised and found two women holding up their hands in surrender while three men cowered behind them. The man shot in the window turned out to be an unarmed older man. He was dead.
Clagett, meanwhile, moved on top of a berm to keep watch and shouted, "I've got another house." Girouard yelled at him to give the direction and distance according to training, then took some of the squad over to that house. The rest of them handcuffed the three men with "zip ties," plastic handcuffs that can be pulled apart if enough force is used. They took them outside and laid them on their bellies in the sand.
In the house, they found kitchenware, two AK-47 rifles, a pistol and ammunition.
When the rest of the squad reached the second house, a man came out holding a baby in front of him. Angered by his cowardice, the squad roughed him up. Girouard told them to take him back inside, away from the combat photographer.
Returning to the first house, Girouard heard the radio transmission from 1st Sgt. Eric Geressy: "Why do we have three (expletive) that should be dead?"
At the house, Girouard called a meeting, according to testimony of his squad members. He huddled them up and told them Hunsaker and Clagett were going to shoot the prisoners. Hunsaker testified that Girouard said, "First sergeant is pretty pissed that these guys ain't dead and he wants to know how come they're not dead. Make it look good." Girouard testified that Hunsaker wanted to kill the prisoners.
One of the soldiers, Sgt. Leonel Lemus, shook his head no and walked to the door, where he and Girouard stared each other down, Lemus said. During his trial, Girouard denied ordering the killing. Lemus wavered under cross-examination whether the order was to kill or just to rough them up. The others testified that the order was to kill.
"The way Sgt. G ran his squad, I thought it was basically like an initiation, if I wanted to be in 3rd squad," Clagett testified. Girouard cut Hunsaker with a knife to make it look like Hunsaker was attacked by the prisoners, according to testimony. Girouard asked who wanted to get cut, and Clagett said, "Not me."
Girouard then left to meet up with another sergeant. Clagett said Hunsaker told him, "I want to kill these (expletive) because they're terrorists."
"I pulled the blindfold up on one guy, down on the other," Clagett testified at his trial, and Hunsaker took the blindfold off the third man. "Hunsaker told them to run. I told them 'Yalla,' to get them to run faster. They didn't run faster, so I raised my weapon. Hunsaker raised his. He shot, then I shot."
Hunsaker testified that he was upset with Clagett because he sprayed fire, slinging the machine gun back and forth, rather than trying to shoot as accurately as possible. Clagett said he had his eyes closed.
"As soon as they fell, I took off my K-pot (helmet) and dropped my weapon," Clagett testified.
Apart at the seams
Clagett was about to wrestle with the devil.
Lemus testified at the later trial that when the shooting stopped, Hunsaker said, "Oh, s---."
Girouard, the squad leader, came running back to the house. He sucker-punched Clagett to make it look like the private had been attacked by the men, Clagett testified, just like he had cut Hunsaker earlier. Lemus ran up and asked Girouard what happened. "But he (Girouard) couldn't answer. He just looked at the bodies and had this frozen look on his face," Lemus testified.
Spc. Juston Graber rushed up to the shot Iraqis. One was vomiting blood and struggling to breathe. Graber later testified that Girouard told him to "put him out of his misery." He had to fire twice at point-blank range to hit the man's head.
By May 11, Army criminal investigators were on base asking questions. Two weeks later, the squad was filling out sworn statements on the incident, saying the Iraqis were terrorists trying to escape. And Clagett was coming apart.
He had boasted around the camp, soldiers testified, telling people he had gotten punched, spun in a circle and just sprayed bullets. The word was going around that Hunsaker had used the bodies for target practice throwing "stars," a piercing weapon. Sgt. Brian Hensley testified that Clagett told him he had gotten his first kill and "the beebs" (Iraqis) could do "the Harlem shake." Clagett demonstrated the dance by slinging his machine gun, waving his arms and shaking his hips like a man quivering as he fell, Hensley said.
But a few other soldiers said Clagett told them what happened and was visibly disturbed. Lemus testified that the story was going around base: "Yeah, you know, 3rd squad went in and executed everybody and these guys were like Johnny Rambo out there." Lemus said one of them was having nightmares and couldn't stop talking about it.
Girouard brought the squad together again and told them "to be loyal and not to go bragging or spreading rumors," Lemus testified. "If he found out who told anything about it he would find that person after he got out of jail and kill him."
'Did as I was told'
The Thar Thar incident was one in a series of allegations that came to light that year of U.S. soldiers raping and killing Iraqis. In the wake of the Abu Ghraib prisoner torture scandal, the accusations lit an already smoldering outrage among Americans, as well as Iraqis.
The heat was on, and the investigators were turning up the burner. Wehrheim, the lieutenant, told Girouard to tell the squad to get their stories straight, Girouard testified.
Investigators pressed the squad, hauling them in one by one for 12-hour "overnights" of interrogation when the soldiers returned from a rotation of three days on combat patrol and three days guarding outposts. They threatened Lemus, saying he could be charged with manslaughter in the death of the old man in the window.
On June 15, they broke Spc. Bradley Mason, a 19-year-old. As a result, Graber admitted to the "mercy" killing. The others were brought in and arrested.
Clagett was put in solitary confinement. He, Girouard and Hunsaker continued to insist the Iraqis broke free and were shot trying to escape. At trial, Clagett's attorney said Clagett was having problems sleeping, nightmares, crying spells and trouble eating.
"He has had to live in a cage. He has had to live in segregation. He has had to live in 24-hour lockup. He has had to live with people spitting in his food and accusing him of being a criminal and calling him an animal and a criminal," the attorney said.
Hunsaker broke next and pleaded guilty in an agreement to testify against the other men. "I got tired of lying to everybody," he said, "and I didn't want to spend the rest of my life in prison for, in my eyes, three dead terrorists."
With Hunsaker's testimony against him, Clagett almost certainly would be found guilty, his attorney told him. He could face life in prison. Clagett pleaded guilty in January 2008. At Clagett's sentencing, he read a poem he had written. In part it said:
Only God knows my heart and the hatred of men,
I can try to explain it, but I can't start or begin.
To the families of Iraq I pray to end this war,
I only did as I was told to complete my tour.
Epilogue
Clagett's cell at Fort Leavenworth is taller than it is wide. It contains a cot, table, sink and toilet. The military "barracks" is the only maximum-security prison in the Department of Defense.
A bid for clemency failed. His appeal failed.
In a letter, Clagett described his life as tedium, doing the same thing over and over and eating the same food over and over. He said his morale is low. He will be eligible for parole consideration in 2 1/2 years.
Michael Waddington is a court martial lawyer - court martial attorney that defends military personnel worldwide as well as deployed civilian contractors subject to the UCMJ. He defends Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine, Coast Guard, and civilian contractor court martial cases. He has successfully defended military personnel as a court martial lawyer Army Navy Marine & Air Force court martials in Germany, England, San Diego, Norfolk, Jacksonville, Fort Bragg, Fort Jackson, Fort Stewart, Fort Gordon, Italy, Iraq, Kuwait, Korea, Okinawa, Japan, Yokota, and throughout the United States. military-defense-lawyer-recentcases.htm.
Court Martial Attorney - US Army soldier convicted of murdering Iraqis sentenced to life in prison
Court Martial Attorney - US Army soldier convicted of murdering Iraqis sentenced to life in prison
By: GEORGE FREY - Associated Press
VILSECK, GERMANY — A U.S. Army soldier convicted of murder in the 2007 killings of four bound and blindfolded Iraqis was sentenced on Thursday to life in prison.
Master Sgt. John Hatley, 40, will also have his rank reduced to private, forfeit all pay and receive a dishonorable discharge, a jury of eight Army officers and noncommissioned officers decided. He has the possibility of parole after serving 20 years.
Hatley and his wife, who sat behind him in the public gallery, both showed no emotion when the sentence was read out. He declined to speak to reporters afterward.
Hatley was found guilty Wednesday of premeditated murder and conspiracy in the execution-style killings of the detainees. He was acquitted of premeditated murder in a separate January 2007 incident in which a wounded Iraqi insurgent was shot and killed.
Hatley, who recently underwent knee surgery, limped to the stand with a cane to give an emotional closing statement earlier Thursday.
The career soldier urged the jury to let him complete six more months of military service, which would have brought his total service to 20 years.
"I've served my country for half my life, which I think is the most honorable profession in the world," he said. "I served America with the best men our great country has to offer. And they are so many. My soldiers are like my sons and there's nothing I wouldn't do for them."
Prosecution lawyer John Riesenberg had argued the case was about how Hatley used his reputation to lead his soldiers "down the brutal path to murder."
"This is among the most colossal failures of leadership," Riesenberg said.
However, military defense lawyer David Court said Hatley was not the evil person he was portrayed as being.
"You have to think about what they (these men) were going through (in Iraq) to judge fairly. He loved his soldiers too much, that was his crime," Court said.
The lawyer later voiced disappointment at the sentence.
"I'm disappointed the panel did not see fit to reduce the time of confinement," Court said. "They had the authority to reduce it to a lesser period."
Hatley could yet have his time in prison reduced by the Army's convening authority, a military panel that will review the case and sentence.
Army rulings also go through an automatic appeals process.
Court had argued during the week that the prosecution's case was based on assumptions and conflicting testimony and that there was no solid proof, such as bodies or eyewitness accounts.
However, previous courts-martial related to the incident resulted in murder convictions of two other soldiers who served in Hatley's unit. Some soldiers have admitted to involvement in the killings.
According to testimony this week and at previous courts-martial, the four Iraqis were taken into custody in spring 2007 after an exchange of fire with Hatley's unit.
Some of the soldiers then took the detainees to a nearby canal and shot them in retribution for attacks on the unit and in hopes of avoiding future attacks, according to the testimony.
Michael Waddington is a court martial lawyer - court martial attorney that defends military personnel worldwide as well as deployed civilian contractors subject to the UCMJ. He defends Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine, Coast Guard, and civilian contractor court martial cases. He has successfully defended military personnel as a court martial lawyer Army Navy Marine & Air Force court martials in Germany, England, San Diego, Norfolk, Jacksonville, Fort Bragg, Fort Jackson, Fort Stewart, Fort Gordon, Italy, Iraq, Kuwait, Korea, Okinawa, Japan, Yokota, and throughout the United States. military-defense-lawyer-recentcases.htm.
By: GEORGE FREY - Associated Press
VILSECK, GERMANY — A U.S. Army soldier convicted of murder in the 2007 killings of four bound and blindfolded Iraqis was sentenced on Thursday to life in prison.
Master Sgt. John Hatley, 40, will also have his rank reduced to private, forfeit all pay and receive a dishonorable discharge, a jury of eight Army officers and noncommissioned officers decided. He has the possibility of parole after serving 20 years.
Hatley and his wife, who sat behind him in the public gallery, both showed no emotion when the sentence was read out. He declined to speak to reporters afterward.
Hatley was found guilty Wednesday of premeditated murder and conspiracy in the execution-style killings of the detainees. He was acquitted of premeditated murder in a separate January 2007 incident in which a wounded Iraqi insurgent was shot and killed.
Hatley, who recently underwent knee surgery, limped to the stand with a cane to give an emotional closing statement earlier Thursday.
The career soldier urged the jury to let him complete six more months of military service, which would have brought his total service to 20 years.
"I've served my country for half my life, which I think is the most honorable profession in the world," he said. "I served America with the best men our great country has to offer. And they are so many. My soldiers are like my sons and there's nothing I wouldn't do for them."
Prosecution lawyer John Riesenberg had argued the case was about how Hatley used his reputation to lead his soldiers "down the brutal path to murder."
"This is among the most colossal failures of leadership," Riesenberg said.
However, military defense lawyer David Court said Hatley was not the evil person he was portrayed as being.
"You have to think about what they (these men) were going through (in Iraq) to judge fairly. He loved his soldiers too much, that was his crime," Court said.
The lawyer later voiced disappointment at the sentence.
"I'm disappointed the panel did not see fit to reduce the time of confinement," Court said. "They had the authority to reduce it to a lesser period."
Hatley could yet have his time in prison reduced by the Army's convening authority, a military panel that will review the case and sentence.
Army rulings also go through an automatic appeals process.
Court had argued during the week that the prosecution's case was based on assumptions and conflicting testimony and that there was no solid proof, such as bodies or eyewitness accounts.
However, previous courts-martial related to the incident resulted in murder convictions of two other soldiers who served in Hatley's unit. Some soldiers have admitted to involvement in the killings.
According to testimony this week and at previous courts-martial, the four Iraqis were taken into custody in spring 2007 after an exchange of fire with Hatley's unit.
Some of the soldiers then took the detainees to a nearby canal and shot them in retribution for attacks on the unit and in hopes of avoiding future attacks, according to the testimony.
Michael Waddington is a court martial lawyer - court martial attorney that defends military personnel worldwide as well as deployed civilian contractors subject to the UCMJ. He defends Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine, Coast Guard, and civilian contractor court martial cases. He has successfully defended military personnel as a court martial lawyer Army Navy Marine & Air Force court martials in Germany, England, San Diego, Norfolk, Jacksonville, Fort Bragg, Fort Jackson, Fort Stewart, Fort Gordon, Italy, Iraq, Kuwait, Korea, Okinawa, Japan, Yokota, and throughout the United States. military-defense-lawyer-recentcases.htm.
Court Martial Lawyer - Jury instructions to include rules on use of new media
Court Martial Lawyer - Jury instructions to include rules on use of new media
By Kent Harris, Stars and Stripes
Recent incidents of jurors using new media during cases in civilian courtrooms in the States have led a military judge to rework instructions given to panelists in military court martial.
Army Col. Ted Dixon, a military judge who edits the military judges’ benchbook, said he’s not aware of any cases of a servicemember posting information on an ongoing court-martial while serving as a juror, but he’s aware of such events in the civilian world.
Recent cases include:
A juror in Arkansas tweeted to friends about a $12 million verdict he helped decide against a company, and the company used his tweets as a reason to appeal the verdict;
A judge in a drug case in Florida declared a mistrial after learning that nine jurors surfed the Internet looking for more information on the case;
A juror in New York tried to get a witness to become a Facebook friend during the trial;
A juror in the United Kingdom reportedly asked her Facebook friends to help her decide a case, and as a result was tossed off the jury;
A judge in Utah sentenced the wife of a defendant to a few days in jail because of text messages she sent during her husband’s trial.
As a result of cases like these, Dixon said he’s been working on specific language addressing networking phenomena such as Twitter and Facebook that judges would use when instructing troops who sit on court-martial panels. Fellow judges have been providing him feedback and there seems to be a general consensus, he said.
“I fully expect a new version (of jury instructions) will be adopted soon,” Dixon said in a telephone interview.
In the meantime, some judges are already using their own versions. In recent courts-martial in Italy, Army and Air Force judges have warned jurors not to talk about the trial with others using any form of communication.
Dixon said he can’t recall a case during his time as a judge where a juror has openly defied his instructions.
“Most people, especially in the military, are going to follow the instructions of the judge,” he said. So if they’re told they can’t do something, they won’t, he said.
Judges have long told jurors not to discuss cases with anyone else or attempt to do research on their own. Such instruction is important, Dixon said, because jurors are supposed to reach decisions based solely on the facts they’re presented during the trial.
If they find out some other information on their own — no matter how important it might be to help them decide a case — they’re not supposed to consider it.
Still, Dixon said it’s possible that some people might not think twice about posting a quick message about the latest development in their lives.
“Some of us have been around so long … I couldn’t Twitter if I wanted to,” he said. “But for some of our younger panel members … [social networking] is almost second nature.”
In addition to the military, some states have taken notice of the use of new media among jurors. The Wisconsin Law Journal reported online that the state was drafting instructions specifically aimed at social networking while on jury duty.
Michael Waddington is a court martial lawyer - court martial attorney that defends military personnel worldwide as well as deployed civilian contractors subject to the UCMJ. He defends Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine, Coast Guard, and civilian contractor court martial cases. He has successfully defended military personnel as a court martial lawyer Army Navy Marine & Air Force court martials in Germany, England, San Diego, Norfolk, Jacksonville, Fort Bragg, Fort Jackson, Fort Stewart, Fort Gordon, Italy, Iraq, Kuwait, Korea, Okinawa, Japan, Yokota, and throughout the United States. military-defense-lawyer-recentcases.htm.
By Kent Harris, Stars and Stripes
Recent incidents of jurors using new media during cases in civilian courtrooms in the States have led a military judge to rework instructions given to panelists in military court martial.
Army Col. Ted Dixon, a military judge who edits the military judges’ benchbook, said he’s not aware of any cases of a servicemember posting information on an ongoing court-martial while serving as a juror, but he’s aware of such events in the civilian world.
Recent cases include:
A juror in Arkansas tweeted to friends about a $12 million verdict he helped decide against a company, and the company used his tweets as a reason to appeal the verdict;
A judge in a drug case in Florida declared a mistrial after learning that nine jurors surfed the Internet looking for more information on the case;
A juror in New York tried to get a witness to become a Facebook friend during the trial;
A juror in the United Kingdom reportedly asked her Facebook friends to help her decide a case, and as a result was tossed off the jury;
A judge in Utah sentenced the wife of a defendant to a few days in jail because of text messages she sent during her husband’s trial.
As a result of cases like these, Dixon said he’s been working on specific language addressing networking phenomena such as Twitter and Facebook that judges would use when instructing troops who sit on court-martial panels. Fellow judges have been providing him feedback and there seems to be a general consensus, he said.
“I fully expect a new version (of jury instructions) will be adopted soon,” Dixon said in a telephone interview.
In the meantime, some judges are already using their own versions. In recent courts-martial in Italy, Army and Air Force judges have warned jurors not to talk about the trial with others using any form of communication.
Dixon said he can’t recall a case during his time as a judge where a juror has openly defied his instructions.
“Most people, especially in the military, are going to follow the instructions of the judge,” he said. So if they’re told they can’t do something, they won’t, he said.
Judges have long told jurors not to discuss cases with anyone else or attempt to do research on their own. Such instruction is important, Dixon said, because jurors are supposed to reach decisions based solely on the facts they’re presented during the trial.
If they find out some other information on their own — no matter how important it might be to help them decide a case — they’re not supposed to consider it.
Still, Dixon said it’s possible that some people might not think twice about posting a quick message about the latest development in their lives.
“Some of us have been around so long … I couldn’t Twitter if I wanted to,” he said. “But for some of our younger panel members … [social networking] is almost second nature.”
In addition to the military, some states have taken notice of the use of new media among jurors. The Wisconsin Law Journal reported online that the state was drafting instructions specifically aimed at social networking while on jury duty.
Michael Waddington is a court martial lawyer - court martial attorney that defends military personnel worldwide as well as deployed civilian contractors subject to the UCMJ. He defends Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine, Coast Guard, and civilian contractor court martial cases. He has successfully defended military personnel as a court martial lawyer Army Navy Marine & Air Force court martials in Germany, England, San Diego, Norfolk, Jacksonville, Fort Bragg, Fort Jackson, Fort Stewart, Fort Gordon, Italy, Iraq, Kuwait, Korea, Okinawa, Japan, Yokota, and throughout the United States. military-defense-lawyer-recentcases.htm.
Court Martial Lawyer - Activist Now Say Court-Martial Not Needed For Zimmerman
Court Martial Lawyer - Activist Now Say Court-Martial Not Needed For Zimmerman
Miri Marshall-Weekend Anchor/Weathercaster/News Reporter
EL PASO, Texas -- Animal activist Jessie Miller said a court martial is not necessary for the Fort Bliss soldier accused of killing one dog and injuring another.
Miller said she met with Maj. Cummings and Col. Benjamin for two hours at Fort Bliss Friday to discuss animal cruelty and the way it is handled in the military. She said they are in the JAG unit on post.
“I feel that Fort Bliss understands the severity of this crime. I think that they've done a very thorough investigation,” said Miller
Spc. Franklyn Zimmerman is the Fort Bliss soldier accused of killing the dog Tinkerbell and injuring the dog Wrigley. Military officials say they will not court-martial Zimmerman, and initially Miller thought that punishment wasn't enough.
"I was thinking an Article 15 was a slap on the hand," she said.
Army officials said Zimmerman will be dismissed from the Army over the case. Over the long haul, Miller thinks this punishment will be fitting.
"He's going to lose his career, medical benefits; he's going to lose his livelihood,” she said.
Miller said she is not sure if in a civilian court Zimmeran would be convicted on felony charges. She said there is a possiblity he would not have served jail time in a civilian justice system and if so, perhaps very little.
Miller said in the meeting the major and colonel assured her that they were handling the case to the best of their ability.
Miller also said that she is working with Fort Bliss leaders to form a committee that will offer advice to the military on how to deal with animal cruelty cases. She said they are thinking of naming it the Tinkerbell Committee in honor of the dog that was killed.
Michael Waddington is a court martial lawyer - court martial attorney that defends military personnel worldwide as well as deployed civilian contractors subject to the UCMJ. He defends Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine, Coast Guard, and civilian contractor court martial cases. He has successfully defended military personnel as a court martial lawyer Army Navy Marine & Air Force court martials in Germany, England, San Diego, Norfolk, Jacksonville, Fort Bragg, Fort Jackson, Fort Stewart, Fort Gordon, Italy, Iraq, Kuwait, Korea, Okinawa, Japan, Yokota, and throughout the United States. military-defense-lawyer-recentcases.htm.
Miri Marshall-Weekend Anchor/Weathercaster/News Reporter
EL PASO, Texas -- Animal activist Jessie Miller said a court martial is not necessary for the Fort Bliss soldier accused of killing one dog and injuring another.
Miller said she met with Maj. Cummings and Col. Benjamin for two hours at Fort Bliss Friday to discuss animal cruelty and the way it is handled in the military. She said they are in the JAG unit on post.
“I feel that Fort Bliss understands the severity of this crime. I think that they've done a very thorough investigation,” said Miller
Spc. Franklyn Zimmerman is the Fort Bliss soldier accused of killing the dog Tinkerbell and injuring the dog Wrigley. Military officials say they will not court-martial Zimmerman, and initially Miller thought that punishment wasn't enough.
"I was thinking an Article 15 was a slap on the hand," she said.
Army officials said Zimmerman will be dismissed from the Army over the case. Over the long haul, Miller thinks this punishment will be fitting.
"He's going to lose his career, medical benefits; he's going to lose his livelihood,” she said.
Miller said she is not sure if in a civilian court Zimmeran would be convicted on felony charges. She said there is a possiblity he would not have served jail time in a civilian justice system and if so, perhaps very little.
Miller said in the meeting the major and colonel assured her that they were handling the case to the best of their ability.
Miller also said that she is working with Fort Bliss leaders to form a committee that will offer advice to the military on how to deal with animal cruelty cases. She said they are thinking of naming it the Tinkerbell Committee in honor of the dog that was killed.
Michael Waddington is a court martial lawyer - court martial attorney that defends military personnel worldwide as well as deployed civilian contractors subject to the UCMJ. He defends Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine, Coast Guard, and civilian contractor court martial cases. He has successfully defended military personnel as a court martial lawyer Army Navy Marine & Air Force court martials in Germany, England, San Diego, Norfolk, Jacksonville, Fort Bragg, Fort Jackson, Fort Stewart, Fort Gordon, Italy, Iraq, Kuwait, Korea, Okinawa, Japan, Yokota, and throughout the United States. military-defense-lawyer-recentcases.htm.
