The Article 32 investigation for Sgt Frank Wuterich, USMC, is set to begin on 30AUG07 aboard Camp Pendleton. LtCol Ware will be the investigating officer. LtCol Ware was the investigating officer for LCpl Stephen B. Tatum and and LCpl Justin L. Sharratt, in both cases he recommended no charges.
Sgt Wuterich’s lawyer, Neal Puckett, a retired [...]
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LtCol P.J. Ware, USMC, filed the report of his investigation into charges against LCpl Stephen B. Tatum, wherein he recommended no criminal charges. LtCol Ware characterized the shootings as tragedies, but LCpl Tatum did not violate the law.
LtCol Ware previously recommended no charges be brought against LCpl Justin L. Sharratt. LtGen [...]
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The Staff Judge Advocate, SJA, - the senior legal adviser, roughly equivalent to in-house counsel for a business - for LtGen Mattis removed himself form the case of LCpl Tatum. The SJA, LtCol Bill Riggs, contacted LtCol Ware and criticized him for holding the government to too high of a standard [...]
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The Article 32 investigation into the actions of LtCol Chessani will be reopened on 8AUG07. The purpose of the hearing is to conduct further examination of evidence submitted during the original investigation in May 2007. The prosecutors recommended, to LtGen Mattis, that two additional charges of dereliction of duty [...]
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Posted in Criminal Law, Iraq, Law on 1 August 2007 | 3 Comments »
The panel of members in the court-martial of Cpl Marshall L. Magincalda, USMC, returned a guilty verdict for the charges of larceny, housebreaking and conspiracy to commit the following: murder, kidnapping, larceny,obstruction of justice, false official statement and housebreaking. He was found not guilty of murder, kidnapping, and making a false official statement. Sentencing is scheduled [...]
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Wired is reporting on the use of a live two-way video stream during testimony in the Article 32 investigations of Marines charged with murder in Haditha, Iraq. Wired does a good job of explaining the technology, but falls a bit short on the law. The hearings held for the Marines are all Article 32 investigations [...]
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In the final day of the Article 32 investigation into LCpl Tatum’s role in the action in Haditha, Iraq, both the prosecution and defense gave their respective summations of the case. The defense emphasized that,
You can’t sit back in an air-conditioned room at Camp Pendleton and second-guess these men. It’s [...]
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From the BBC:
UK military spokesman Major Mike Shearer said: “We can categorically state that we have not released man-eating badgers into the area.”
Though I think it would have been better if he had said: “Badgers? We don’t need no stinking badgers!”
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LCpl Tatum testified that he did not “know that there was women and children in that house until later . . . otherwise, I would have physically stopped everyone in that room from shooting.” This testimony came during his unsworn statement during an Article 32 investigation in his actions in [...]
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You might recall my post back in March about IslamTube entitled “IslamTube: Snipers and Destruction.” Bottom line, IslamTube back then (hold on before you excoriate me for not updating my sources) featured such crowd-pleasers as videos of jihadists blowing up Coalition forces, and Zawahiri tapes–much unlike the cheery GodTube.
Well, turns out somebody has now [...]
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As the investigation moved into its fifth day Special Agent Micheal Maloney, of NCIS, was called as a witness by the prosecution. SA Maloney testified that 17 bullets had been fired by the Marines that day at Haditha, Iraq. The women were killed first and the children were shot [...]
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The President yesterday signed an Executive Order, entitled “Interpretation of the Geneva Conventions Common Article 3 as Applied to a Program of Detention and Interrogation Operated by the Central Intelligence Agency.”
The White House Press release is HERE, and the full text of the Executive Order follows below my brief analysis.
Note that the Military Commissions Act [...]
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As the investigation into Marine LCpl Tatum and his role in the killings at Haditha, Iraq, the testimony turned to the forensics. Lt.Col. Elizabeth Rouse, USAF, a forensic pathologist and medical examiner, testified that she was not able to view the bodies, and she was only able to look at photographs. The photographs were taken [...]
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Cpl Thomas was sentenced today, 20Jul07, to a bad-conduct discharge, and reduction to E-1. He was found guilty of kidnapping and conspiracy to commit murder. The Government had sought 15 years confinement.
For charges of this magnitude, this seems like a low sentence, as compared with other courts-martial for the same offenses. The members [...]
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As the investigation into LCpl Tatum’s actions at Haditha continued, agents of NCIS were called as witnesses. NCIS Special Agent Matthew Marshall testified about his interrogation of LCpl Tatum, stating that LCpl Tatum was remorseful when he explained that he had identified targets as women and children. At that [...]
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