Posted on 06/26/2013 5:40:01 PM PDT by Saoirise
A major Iraq War crimes case was upended Wednesday when the military's highest court tossed the conviction of a former Camp Pendleton Marine accused of murdering an unarmed man in Hamdaniya, Iraq in 2006.
Sgt. Lawrence Hutchins III, the former squad leader of the "Pendleton 8" as supporters in San Diego called them, was convicted in 2007 and is serving an 11-year sentence in the brig at Marine Corps Air Station Miramar.
The military accused Hutchins of being the ringleader in a plot to capture and kill a suspected insurgent at the height of the war. When they couldn’t find him they murdered another man and staged the body to look like he had been planting roadside bombs, prosecutors argued.
On Wednesday, the Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces dismissed Hutchins' conviction for unpremeditated murder, saying his case was based on an illegally obtained confession, according to a copy of the decision. Now the government could appeal to the Supreme Court, or the military convening authority could order a retrial.
Hutchins had argued that his constitutional rights were violated when he was held in solitary confinement without access to a lawyer for a week during his interrogation in Iraq.
"Sgt Hutchins is now an innocent man in the eyes of the law, and should be free from confinement at the Miramar Brig very soon," his lawyer, Maj. Babu Kaza said. "It is time for this case to be over. Sgt Hutchins and his family have suffered enough."
Bumping this thread all!
I do hope Larry gets to go home and stay. He deserves it. His family deserves it.
Me too, Fred. Let’s pray he’s out soon.
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