Seeing that SSgt Wuterich’s trial has been indefinitely delayed, it would be wrong for Chessani or Grayson to be tried prior to Wuterich. It is clear that the house of cards constructed by the hit-men NCIS/JAG coalition has tumbled down, but they can still claim their entire story simply because Wuterich has yet to be exhonerated....which he will be if justice means anything at all.
I imagine they are salivating to get Chessani and Grayson in front of juries before Wuterich is exhonerated, and THAT may be why they’re appealing the unappealable about 60 minutes video not broadcast. They WANT to delay Wuterich so they can get Chessani/Grayson, a thing that would NOT happen if those two go to trial with final proof that no crime had been committed.
How can you try a man for failing to report, or for covering up, a crime that had not been committed?
How especially can you do so, when there is overwhelming evidence that reports were passed up the entire chain of command? How can you do so when the command watched the engagement themselves while it was happening? How can you do so when two separate investigations established that Marines were acting as they were trained to act and nothing more?
I guess you can IF there’s a “shadow group” operating — pushing events in some desired political direction.
A legal question for any lawyers out there: If a commander is required to report atrocities, murders, etc.; and since all murder charges have been dropped in favor of manslaughter charges, and these hinge on what a SSG was thinking prior to pulling a trigger, how can a commander such as Chessani be held culpable for not reporting what was APPARENTLY a ROE correct battle, a battle that could only be determined by the careful questioning of one man and what that man was thinking when he happened to pull trigger on one room out of that entire battle?
If Wuterich were wrong (and I don’t think he was) his thoughts at a particular moment as he pulled a trigger would never have come out in a battalion-level AAR review or investigation...no way, not in a million years. Battalion’s simply don’t have those kinds of resources to discover such things OR even to recognize them if they did discover them.
Scuttlebutt has it that the prosecution dropped charges against LCpl Tatum because they knew he’d be acquitted. And his acquittal would weaken their already small chances against SSgt Wuterich.
So much for a “search for the truth” by prosecutors without “passion or prejudice”.
Regardless, the Chessani case prosecution will be that his actions were derelict—regardless of whether a massacre happened or not. That’s a narrower argument, and may be harder to win.
That is called a 'process crime' and sadly it happens with increasing frequency when political matters are at stake.