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OT - It was worth the time it took me away from comics!

Started by esquirecomics,

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esquirecomics

esquirecomics

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Some of you may have noticed I did not spend much time on the boards this Summer. Nor have I been able to devote much time to EsquireComics.com.

 

One of the primary reasons for this is that I was engaged in defending SSgt Frank Wuterich in the Haditha criminal prosecution. My client was initially charged on December 21, 2006, with 18 murders arising from the activities of his squad in Haditha, Iraq on November 19, 2005. He was facing the possibility of life imprisonment. :(

 

I spent nearly one month at Camp Pendleton Marine Corps Base in July-Sept to prepare for and then participate in his Article 32 proceeding (equivalent to the civilian grand jury). The Article 32 proceeding lasted from August 30 - September 7, 2007.

 

On October 2, 2007, the Investigative Officer issued his recommendation. It went public over the last 24 hours. Not one charge of murder!!!! :applause:

 

There were some recommendations for lesser charges, but we are confident that if they go forward - and nothing is certain until the Convening Authority (General Mattis) decides whether to accept or reject the recommendation - we can handle them.

 

This was just too significant a victory not to share with my fellow forumites! Hopefully I can now get back to, as Mr. Borock likes to say, playing with my funny books! :banana:

 

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Thursday, October 4, 2007

 

Officer: Drop murder charges against Haditha Marine

 

By: MARK WALKER - Staff Writer

North County Times, CA

Official recommends Wuterich should be tried for negligent homicide in deaths of two women, five children

 

CAMP PENDLETON -- A Marine Corps official has recommended that murder charges be dismissed against a Camp Pendleton squad leader accused in the deaths of 17 civilians killed in the Iraqi city of Haditha two years ago.

 

The official, Lt. Col. Paul Ware, said in a recommendation obtained by the North County Times that rather than face murder charges, squad leader Staff Sgt. Frank Wuterich should be tried for the lesser offense of negligent homicide in the deaths of five children and two women.

 

Ware recommended 10 other murder charges against Wuterich be dismissed.

 

"I believe after reviewing all the evidence that no trier of fact can conclude Staff Sgt. Wuterich formed the criminal intent to kill," Ware wrote in reference to the women and children. "When a Marine fails to exercise due care and civilians die, the charge of negligent homicide, and not murder, is appropriate."

 

Ware's report, issued to prosecutors and defense attorneys this week, found the evidence against Wuterich contradictory. Ware's role as the case's investigating officer is akin to that of a judge presiding over a pretrial hearing.

 

"The case against Staff Sgt. Wuterich is simply not strong enough to conclude he committed murder beyond a reasonable doubt," Ware wrote. "Almost all witnesses have an obvious bias or prejudice."

 

Wuterich's attorneys were reviewing the report and were unavailable. Marine Corps policy dictates that officials and prosecutors do not comment on an investigating officer's findings.

 

The Haditha incident is one of two civilian killing cases arising out of actions by Camp Pendleton troops in Iraq. It evolved from an initial determination that the deaths were the result of urban warfare into a firestorm that mixed politics with the fog of war and the military's rules of engagement.

 

Four officers were eventually charged with dereliction of duty at Haditha and four enlisted men charged with murder. Charges have since been dropped for two officers and two enlisted men.

 

Ware's recommendations are headed to Camp Pendleton's Gen. James Mattis, who will decide what happens to Wuterich. The 27-year-old Connecticut native, whose first combat experience came at Haditha, could face a life sentence in prison if convicted of murder at trial. Negligent homicide carries a maximum three-year prison term.

 

Mattis can accept or reject Ware's recommendations. The general's power under the military justice system includes authority to drop the case altogether, which he did for two officers and two enlisted men.

 

The civilian deaths came after Wuterich led his squad in an attack on a group of homes following a roadside bombing that destroyed a Humvee, killing a lance corporal and injuring two Marines.

 

Five Iraqi men were the first to die when Wuterich shot them shortly after they emerged from a car that drove up immediately after the bombing. Ware recommends the charges in those deaths be dismissed, accepting Wuterich's statement that he believed those men were insurgents taking part in the attack.

 

The Marine Corps initially reported the Iraqis died in the bombing and subsequent small arms fire. Several weeks later, the military corrected the number of deaths to 24 after questions were raised by a Time magazine reporter who spoke to relatives of the slain Iraqis.

 

The first media reports resulted in an international outcry, prompting military officials to order a full-scale investigation, which brought on criminal charges.

 

A decision on whether Wuterich's battalion commander at Haditha, Lt. Col. Jeffrey Chessani, will face court-martial on dereliction charges is pending, as is a recommendation that murder charges against Lance Cpl. Stephen Tatum be dismissed.

 

Murder charges against Lance Cpl. Justin Sharratt were dropped after the general found he acted within the rules of engagement. Ware also presided over the hearings for Sharratt and Tatum and recommended their charges be dismissed.

 

The fourth enlisted man in the case, Sgt. Sanick Dela Cruz, had murder charges against him dropped in April in exchange for his testimony.

 

Dereliction charges have been dropped against Capts. Randy Stone and Lucas McConnell. A pretrial hearing for 1st Lt. Andrew Grayson is set to begin later this month.

 

During Wuterich's hearing, which concluded in early September, he told Ware that he regretted the civilian deaths but maintained he and his men acted in response to their training and within the rules of engagement.

 

"I will always mourn the unfortunate deaths of the innocent Iraqis who were killed during our response to that attack," Wuterich said. "As a sergeant and a squad leader, I am responsible for the decisions made to employ the tactics we used that day."

 

Former Marine Corps judge and prosecutor Gary Solis, now a military law professor at Georgetown University, said the outlook for Wuterich is a lot brighter now.

 

"We are seeing the system at work," Solis said, "and the question now is if he does face trial on negligent homicide, will a jury at Camp Pendleton convict him?"

 

The Haditha charges came six months after another Camp Pendleton group was charged in the abduction and slaying of an Iraqi man in the village of Hamdania. That case resulted in convictions for seven Marines and a Navy corpsman.

 

 

The New York Times

 

October 5, 2007

Investigator Said to Find Case Against Marine Weak

By PAUL von ZIELBAUER

 

BAGHDAD, Oct. 4 — A military investigator has recommended dropping murder charges against a Marine infantryman charged with killing 17 apparently unarmed Iraqis in the volatile city of Haditha nearly two years ago, a defense lawyer in the case said Thursday.

 

Instead, the investigator recommended that if the case proceeded to court-martial, the marine, Staff Sgt. Frank D. Wuterich, be charged only with negligent homicide for the deaths of seven women and children killed in a home assaulted by a Marine squad after a roadside bomb struck its convoy, said Mark Zaid, a lawyer for Sergeant Wuterich.

 

The investigator recommended that no charges be filed against Sergeant Wuterich in the deaths of the other 10 Iraqis he was originally accused of killing. The investigator, Lt. Col. Paul J. Ware, a Marine lawyer, has sent his recommendation to the commanding general of the First Marine Expeditionary Force, who will decide whether to try the case by court-martial.

 

Colonel Ware has presided over hearings for all three enlisted men charged with murder in the Haditha episode and last summer recommended dropping all charges against the previous two, Lance Cpls. Justin L. Sharratt and Stephen B. Tatum, citing a lack of evidence. Colonel Ware said those killings should be viewed in the context of combat against an enemy that ruthlessly employs civilians as cover. He also warned that murder charges against marines could harm the morale of troops still in Iraq.

 

The commanding general, James N. Mattis, has dismissed the charges against one of the lance corporals but has not yet ruled on the other case.

 

In his 37-page report on Sergeant Wuterich’s case, Colonel Ware again struck a skeptical tone about the evidence presented by prosecutors, said someone who had reviewed the document, and seemed inclined to give the accused infantryman the benefit of the doubt.

 

Colonel Ware found testimony from the main prosecution witness, Sgt. Sanick Dela Cruz, to be “wholly incredible.”

 

“The case against Staff Sergeant Wuterich, that he committed murder, is simply not strong enough to prove beyond a reasonable doubt,” Colonel Ware wrote, according to a person who read the report and quoted portions of it to a reporter.

 

Prosecuting the Haditha case has posed special challenges because the killings were not comprehensively investigated when they first occurred. Months later, when details came to light, there were no bodies to examine and no Iraqi witnesses to testify.

 

On Nov. 17, 2005, Sergeant Wuterich, then a 25-year-old squad leader, was the senior enlisted man in a group of marines that attacked four homes after the roadside bombing of their convoy. Over several hours, the marines killed 24 people, including five men in a car that pulled up near the scene of the explosion, and about 10 women and children in the nearby homes.

 

In an interview with “60 Minutes” broadcast this year, Sergeant Wuterich, of Meriden, Conn., acknowledged killing the five men from the car because, he said, they had run away, disobeying shouted orders to stand still.

 

Sergeant Dela Cruz had testified that he saw Sergeant Wuterich kill the five men while their hands were up.

 

Inside the homes where many Iraqis were killed, including the seven women and children Sergeant Wuterich was accused of killing, marines used grenades and rifles to clear the structures of enemy fighters. No weapons were found in the homes.

 

In the report, Colonel Ware said he believed that a jury would probably decline to convict Sergeant Wuterich of any crime other than dereliction of duty, for failing to ensure that his men followed the rules of engagement when they fired their weapons, according to a person who has read the document.

 

“I believe after reviewing all the evidence no trier of fact can conclude that Staff Sgt. Wuterich formed the criminal intent to kill,” Colonel Ware wrote, the person who reviewed the report said. “The evidence is contradictory, the forensic analysis is limited, and almost all the witnesses have an obvious bias or prejudice.”

 

Several officers were earlier charged with dereliction of duty for failing to properly investigate the episode. Investigators recommended dropping all charges against a battalion lawyer and the company commander.

 

The case against a battalion commander was recommended to proceed to court-martial.

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jdnoyes

jdnoyes

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Congrats. Thanks for what you did. I can tell you from serving two tours in Iraq that the fear of being charged with something like this has made many Soldiers and Marines unwilling to pull the trigger when it is needed, which is a shame. Guess I know who to look up in case something like this was to happen to me in the future.

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lizards2

lizards2

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Congratulations to you and SSgt Wuterich.

 

It is very unfortunate what happened to innocent civilians. However, things like this happen in war.

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cannonfodder

cannonfodder

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Well done Mark. It is nice to see a positive outcome in this. If only you had also defended Border Patrol Agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Alonso Compean, maybe there would have been a different outcome for them, too.

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Mac Man

Mac Man

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Mark, congrat's on the win! I live about 20 minutes or so from Meridan, so you can imagine how much the local channels have been following this- kind of funny to think you were the one defending him. Thanks for taking care of the troops- +1 for the lawyers!-)

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