Posted on 09/29/2010 5:54:53 AM PDT by STARWISE
NIMJ reported today that the Lakin court-martial has been pushed back to 4 November.
According to this report from WUSA, the extra time was granted to “give the defense more time to ask the court of appeals for help.” Considering both the defense’s delay of approximately
25 days before filing the petition for extraordinary relief and the implausibility of obtaining extraordinary relief, it’s quite surprising that Judge Lind would delay the trial on that basis.
[We're trying to get a copy of the petition for extraordinary relief, but so far have received no reply to our request to ACCA for a copy.]
At the same link, you can see a clip of LTC Lakin’s civilian attorney, Paul Rolf Jensen, saying: “And President Richard Nixon said he wasn’t a crook, and President Clinton said he didn’t have sex with that woman,. The point is, we are in a court of law, let him come in and be subject to cross examination with the original documentation. What do they have to hide?”
h/t to Reality Check in a comment on Phil Cave’s blog for the link to the WUSA report.
One of our 3L student interns who is also an Army veteran made the trek up I-295 today to watch the latest hearing in the strange case of LTC Terrence Lakin, the Army doctor who refused to obey various orders related to a deployment to Afghanistan.
At today's court-martial session, the defense and trial counsel argued a number of motions. The defense first argued that the military judge should abate the court-martial until the Army Court of Criminal Appeals rules on a writ petition the defense inexplicably ("for reasons I can't get into right now," according to a defense counsel) filed just yesterday, in response to the military judge's ruling on September 2.
The defense also attempted to convince the military judge that several prospective witnesses who were the subject of prosecution motions in limine were relevant to the defense case. These witnesses included former presidential candidate Alan Keyes and a retired Air Force general.
The defense sought to qualify these gentlemen as experts in the areas of constitutional history and military training regarding the chain of command and obedience to orders, respectively.
The trial counsel argued that bringing evidence of motivation for refusal to follow the orders was irrelevant and should be excluded, citing a previous anthrax shot refusal case in which the military judge did just that.
(I'm not sure which case it was, but the case of another military doctor--Air Force Captain John Buck--comes to mind.)
The military judge responded by determining that the orders (Specifications 1-3 of Charge II) given LTC Lakin were lawful. She continued by taking judicial notice of an Army regulation regarding orders and ruling that the witnesses who were the subject of the government motion in limine were precluded from testifying as experts, although they could end up testifying in sentencing if the case proceeds that far.
Furthermore, the military judge granted the prosecution motions to prevent the defense from raising irrelevant issues regarding President Obama's eligibility to serve as the commander-in-chief and LTC Lakin's motivation for disobeying the deployment orders during the findings phase of the trial. Again, the motivation might become relevant in sentencing.
Hearing this, the civilian defense counsel remarked that this gutted the defense case, and he had to put on some sort of defense. Apparently, LTC Lakin is chomping at the bit to testify in his own defense, so that might be the sum total of the defense case after today's rulings.
The court-martial is set to resume at Ft. Meade on November 4. Stay tuned for more on this saga.
h/t to Charlie Fowler, CAAFlog, and Phil Cave for today's reporting and the previous commentary on this case.
~~~~~
Further info HERE.
** Ping!
The Kenyan usurper’s kangaroo court.
It seems that by granting the defense motion for postponement this ‘kangeroo court’ is at this point bending over backward to protect the defendant’s rights.
..Ping!
Nothing of any significance will be heard till after the first of the year...
Another punt IMO and a couple of more after that. Delay tactics, sending it to the appeals court and eventually SCOTUS in late Jan early Feb.
Introduction: Anatomy of a Court-Martial
“VERDICT FIRST, THEN THE TRIAL”
###
by Sharon Rondeau
(Sept. 28, 2010) — Lt. Commander Walter Fitzpatrick contacted The Post & Email out of his stated concern for Lt. Col. Terrence Lakin, who is scheduled to be court-martialed next month as a result of his refusal to follow orders on the grounds that Barack Hussein Obama does not meet the constitutional eligibility requirements to serve as commander-in-chief of the military.
As of 2:00 p.m. on September 27, 2010, Lakin’s defense team announced a new development in his case:
We have now filed our Petition for a Writ of Mandamus in the Army Court of Criminal Appeals, but the trial court is going to proceed with a hearing tomorrow (Tuesday) as scheduled.
However, Fitzpatrick has stated that military courts-martial are “rigged” against the defendant with no appeal process, and that in his case, the accuser and prosecutor were one and the same, in violation of proper procedure.
He claims that “forgery has been proved” in regard to a “confession” document which was produced and put in his file (shown below) and that military commanders up to and including Admiral Michael Mullen are aware of but have taken no steps to correct the injustice which he was dealt 21 years ago.
According to Fitzpatrick, “The official Navy-Marine Corps position remains undisturbed.”
The following is the first of a series of reports which The Post & Email will be publishing in regard to Cdr. Fitzpatrick’s court-martial, how his experience relates to Lt. Col. Lakin’s upcoming court-martial, and finally, how the absence of a jury trial within the military justice system has been imposed on the civilian population by the government takeover and/or abolition of Fifth Amendment-guaranteed grand juries.
CDR. FITZPATRICK: I was court-martialed in 1990. The information that I was able to come into possession of is absolutely nothing but earth-shattering, and it’s nothing but a miracle that I actually obtained it.
MRS. RONDEAU: Does this have anything to do with Col. William Winthrop?
CDR. FITZPATRICK: Yes. It’s because of what happened to me that I learned about William Winthrop. I needed to find out what happened to me. I didn’t understand how an innocent man could be brought through this court-martial process and handled in the way that I was. So that began my study of William Winthrop. I’ve read a lot. I’m not bragging; I’m just saying I read a lot, and Winthrop is a very small part of it.
I put together the documentation I have which now totals over 60 folders. The story was so enormous that Norm Dicks, the congressman from Washington state (they call him the “third senator of Washington state”) who has been there since Moby-Dick was a minnow and since before I was a plebe at the Naval Academy, came in and spiked it. Norm Dicks is a monster. He and Patty Murray are both poster children for all things related to how a court-martial is rigged.
I’m going to give you the high points. Each of the folders has on its front an executive brief, and when you open it up, you can read my main point. I wrote a letter on the right-hand side of each folder explaining the documents; everything is there. It is as if I were briefing a general.
My court-martial was held before the show trial, behind closed doors. It happened on the 12th of October, and the men who were my accusers were John Bitoff, an admiral and the convening authority, and the other guy was Tim Zeller, who was the staff JAG working for Bitoff. These two men rigged the entire court-martial process, from beginning to end.
They picked my defense counsel. His name is Kevin Anderson. Anderson is working as a deputy prosecutor in Kitsap County, Washington state tonight, where I moved from three years ago.
On the 12th of October, Bitoff, Zeller, another officer named Paul Romansky and a guy named Capt. Mike Edwards got together and held my court-martial behind closed doors. I was pronounced guilty in writing before anything else happened. The two men who were my accusers were the two men who ran the court-martial. Even in the military discipline system, you can’t do that.
One of the things that these men did was to threaten a civilian with a court-martial if he didn’t cooperate with John Bitoff and Zeller. They approached a civilian and said, “We’re going to court-martial you if you don’t cooperate with us.” Do you understand how extraordinarily powerful what I just said is?
Rest here
http://www.thepostemail.com/2010/09/28/introduction-anatomy-of-a-court-martial/
The Military Judge refers to a section of the charges against LTC Lakin. So I'm adding the charges against LTC Lakin for information to the thread. Note that it list three officers whose orders that LTC failed to obey.
or
CHARGE I, VIOLATION OF THE UCMJ. ARTICLE 87The Specification:
In that Lieutenant Colonel Terrence L. Lakin, US Army, did, at or near Arlington, Virginia, on or about 12 April 2010, through design, miss the movement of US Airways Flight Number 1123, departing from Baltimore/Washington International Airport arriving in Charlotte, North Carolina, in order to deploy for a Temporary Change of Station in support of Operation Enduring Freedom with the 32nd Calvary Regiment, 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault), Fort Campbell, Kentucky, with which he was required in the course of duty to move.CHARGE II, VIOLATION OF THE UCMJ . ARTICLE 92
Specification 1:
In that Lieutenant Colonel Terrence L. Lakin, US Army, having knowledge of a lawful order issued by Lieutenant Colonel William Judd, to report to the office of his Brigade Commander, Colonel Gordon R. Roberts, at 1345 hours, or words to that effect, an order which it was his duty to obey, did, at or near Arlington, Virginia, on or about 31 March 2010, fail to obey the same by wrongfully not reporting as directed.Specification 2:
In that Lieutenant Colonel Terrence L. Lakin, US Army, having knowledge of a lawful order issued by Colonel Gordon R. Roberts, to wit: a memorandum signed by the said Colonel Gordon R. Roberts, dated 31 March 2010, an order which it was his duty to obey, did, at or near Arlington, Virginia, on or about 31 March 2010, fail to obey the same by wrongfully not reporting as directed.Specification 3:
In that Lieutenant Colonel Terrence L. Lakin, US Army, having knowledge of a lawful order issued by Colonel Peter M. McHugh, to wit: Temporary Change of Station orders 099-17, dated 9 April 2010, issued by Colonel Peter McHugh, requiring the said Lieutenant Colonel Terrence L. Lakin to report to Fort Campbell, Kentucky not later than 1500 hours on 12 April 2010, an order which it was his duty to obey, did at or near Washington, District of Columbia, on or about 12 April 2010, fail to obey the same by wrongfully failing to report to 32nd Calvary Regiment, 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault), Fort Campbell, Kentucky.Specification 4:
In that Lieutenant Colonel Terrence L. Lakin, US Army, who knew or should have known of his duties at or near Washington, District of Columbia, on or about 12 April 2010, was derelict in the performance of those duties in that he willfully failed to report to Fort Campbell, Kentucky in accordance with Temporary Change of Station orders 099-17, dated 9 April 2010, issued by Colonel Peter McHugh, in support of Operation Enduring Freedom, as it was his duty to do."
Thank you.
Two of the charges are in regards to orders that support Operation Enduring Freedom, which is under the authority of the Commander in Chief. Lakin has a constitutional right to challenge the authority of his commander in chief, particularly as it relates to the lawfulness of these orders. At least the UCMJ suggests this is within his rights.
But three are direct orders from a superior officer to report to another officer to which he refused to do. That is the one’s he’s most likely to be convicted on imo. Career enders.
Why isn't he asking to see their birth certificates?
Why isn’t he asking to see their birth certificates?
I have no idea..... Maybe they’ll ask him during trial.
If Lakin had evidence that Obama was not President, then he could challenge the orders. But he cannot challenge the orders and then demand the courts investigate his suspicions.
To disobey an order, it must be obviously illegal. For example, I once had a Lt Col order me to enter false takeoff times on the official logsheets, so the squadron wouldn’t get charged with late takeoffs. On that logsheet, it had printed on every page that entering false information was a crime punishable by (IIRC) up to 5 years in prison. So I told the Lt Col to put his order in writing and run it by the legal office, which he knew he could not do.
But a deployment order is not obviously illegal, so it is assumed to be legal unless the challenger possesses evidence - which Lakin does not.
The orders made in support of Operation Enduring Freedom can’t be and aren’t made independently without inherent authority through the chain of command descending from the President, so IMO, Lakin has a right to challenge the lawfulness of these orders. The court denies Lakin due process if he’s not allowed to defend himself on those charges.
Probably because they aren't constitutionally required to be natural born citizens.
Such an order would be illegal if the authority of the chain of command is impaired, which seems to be the case.
When the ass brays, don’t reply
Everyone has an opinion and the only one that will count is what the court marital determines along with the followup appeal decisions. He’s on very shakey ground imo and I think the Court Martial charges are designed to place him in that light. They are very limited in scope and deal with specific actions that he failed to obey. Had he obeyed them up and until the plane took off for overseas then these wouldn’t be available to use against him.
How does he know they're even citizens?
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