“He is charged under the Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act passed by Congress in 2000 to allow service members serving overseas to be prosecuted in civilian court for offenses that call for more than one year of imprisonment.”
In a civilian court, any prospective juror with the experience or training necessary to understand the situation of a soldier in in combat will probably be dismissed as being prejudicial. With the state of our judiciary, such politically charged cases as this will probably be steered to an activist judge, and there will be the usual carefully selected stupid jury. So now, thanks to the permanent imitation Nuremburg tribunal created by the ridiculous “Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act”, we can look forward to trial lawyers scouring South Asia for “victims” and “war crimes”, targeting whatever soldiers get in the way. The only satisfactory outcome is to repeal this stupid act and get back to the UCMJ. Until then lets hope and pray for lots of luck for guys like Nazario and Nelson.
I believe that this Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act was setup for civilian employees who were working in active combat zones along side of military personnel.
Please tell me why the UCMJ isn't enough? Or is it that this Act has been twisted from its origination in 1999 to now DEMAND that the military become double jeopardy targets?