NAZARIO TRIAL, DAY THREE: WHAT PURPOSE IS SERVED?

Defend Our Marines ^ | August 26, 2088 | Nathaniel R. Helms

[RedRover]

Riverside, California--After two years, countless thousands of dollars and the destruction of far too many reputations, the manslaughter trial of former Marine Corps Sergeant Jose L. Nazario is almost over.

Tuesday afternoon at the close of business US District Judge Stephen Larson told the lawyers and spectators in the crowded court room in Riverside that the case against Nazario will go to the jury Thursday morning.

From the sound of the things, the news didn’t reach the nine women and three men any too soon. They were already asking Larson when the trial would end, he said.

Despite watching the investigations unfold, from the first revelation by Ryan Weemer when he thought the war was behind him, it is still difficult to determine what the trial was really about. And it is impossible to say who or what it served.

Finding the truth obviously wasn’t the reason. The truth didn’t survive the battlefield.

The version of events presented in the Riverside courtroom the past weeks bore scant resemblance to what the Marines who were at Fallujah say happened on the battlefield when the al Qaeda inspired insurgent army decided to take on the United States Marine Corps.

Serving justice certainly wasn’t the purpose. There is no one seeking vengeance except the government that sent the Marines to war. There are no Iraqi grieving families to mollify, no known widows except wives of dead Marines either, only ruined American lives, anxious parents, and the financial and emotional ruin of good men who volunteered to serve in a vicious war where most people feared to tread.

Finally, there are no criminals to corral. When Nazario arrested, he was patrolling Riverside as a probationary police officer. Before that he was a Marine doing his duty in a fiery cauldron that literally drove men mad. Some of them testified at his trial Tuesday afternoon.

After listening to testimony, defense attorney Joseph M. Preis, a dapper former Marine enlisted man working pro bono on behalf of the Pepper Hamilton law firm, equated it to a group of people interpreting the Bible. Each one comes way with a different interpretation.

Preis belongs to the group of former Marines and one civilian who jokingly call themselves the Marine Dream Team. In addition to Preis, former Marine colonel Doug Applegate, former captain Kevin B. McDermott, and Vincent LaBarbera vigorously defended Nazario without any reasonable expectation of ever being recompensed.

Preis’ assessment of what happened Tuesday afternoon is a fair one. The Marines who testified couldn’t even agree on the weather or the clothes the alleged decedents were wearing.

One of them said it was in the 30s and 40s during the day and freezing at night. Another fellow said it was 90 degrees in the sun.

There were other conflicts as well. One Marine said there was two Humvees outside the house where Nazario and his two co-defendants allegedly killed four captured enemy combatants.

Another Marine who was standing outside the entire time said there were eight or nine.

Most importantly, though, no one saw Nazario kill anyone and no one could explain why he would. The real explanation was stifled during a pre-trial agreement to keep the reasons behind the accusations simple. Nobody was interested in putting the Marine Corps or its policies on trial.

The Bible didn’t enter my thinking while I watched the former Marines tortured by the recollections they were forced to try and recall. Their honest attempts to tell what happened reminded me of the Indian fable about six blind men describing an elephant they could only feel.

'It is a great mud wall baked hard in the sun,' the first man said.

'I can tell you what shape this elephant is - he is exactly like a spear,’ the second man said.

The third man said it resembled a rope.

'Ha,’ the fourth man declared. 'This elephant much resembles a serpent.'

‘Even a blind man can see what shape the elephant resembles,’ the fifth blind man declared. ‘He's mightily like a fan.'

The sixth man said the elephant was the trunk of a great areca palm tree.

All of them were right and all of them were wrong. It sort of depended on which blind man was looking.

All I could think was thank goodness justice is blind.

[RedRover]

Defend Our Marines is now reporting that the prosecution rested its case this morning after calling one last witness.

Appearing as the government's final witness in its case against Jose Nazario, NCIS Special Agent Mark O. Fox told jurors how he attempted to use Sgt Jermaine Nelson to entrap Nazario in a taped telephone conversation. (Defend Our Marines reported this attempted entrapment on August 14: Semper Rat: Government coerced Marine to turn snitch.)

At the end of the government's case, the defense gave the judge a motion to dismiss. That motion is now being considered. It seems likely, however, that the case will go to the jury.

There are also two stories about yesterday's events...

View from the courtroom: The Nazario trial, day three

Fog of War Clouds Witnesses' Recollections

There is a "live thread" of the Nazario trial here.

[RedRover]

[lilycicero]

Thanks Marine Dream Team Defense....and of course to Defend Our Marines.

[Marine_Uncle]

The movie pic says it all. Surely this Marine will walk a freeman soon.

[Girlene]

What purpose is served? Good question.

Appearing as the government's final witness in its case against Jose Nazario, NCIS Special Agent Mark O. Fox told jurors how he attempted to use Sgt Jermaine Nelson to entrap Nazario in a taped telephone conversation.

Oh, I see. The prosecutors saved their "best" witness for last. NCIS Special Agent Mark O. Fox. The dude that started this whole mess of an investigation/indictment process. I hope he also wonders what purpose was served. I hope his superiors who authorized his investigation that took him many miles, many months, at the taxpayers' expense to come up with a Marine charged in federal (civilian) court ask the same question. Somehow, I doubt they ever will.

[brityank]

From the second link above:

Finding the truth obviously wasn’t the reason. The truth didn’t survive the battlefield.

I noticed that it seems the Prosecution has objected to quite a few testimonies in this case, besides the Defense getting the unwarranted lie-detector info tossed. Seems the truth does not survive our court process anymore, either.

Thank you and Nate for the info, Red. Will look deeper later.

[Girlene]

MILITARY: Civilian jury deliberating fate of former Marine >

"RIVERSIDE ---- The fate of a former Camp Pendleton Marine accused of killing unarmed captives in 2004 during brutal fighting in the Iraqi city of Fallujah rested Wednesday afternoon in the hands of a civilian jury.

In the first trial of its kind, a panel of civilians will decide if the alleged actions of a former service member in combat violated the rules of engagement.

Jose Luis Nazario Jr. faces 10 years in prison and possibly longer if convicted of manslaughter and directing the slayings, which came on the first day of battle in a U.S. assault on Fallujah.

Federal prosecutors also have charged the Riverside man with using a firearm in the commission of a crime. That charge carries a mandatory 10-year term.

The alleged killings came on Nov. 9, 2004, not long after Nazario and his squad found four men hiding in an Iraqi house, where the Marines also found a cache of weapons. Prosecutors said Nazario, then a sergeant, shot two of the men, and ordered his junior Marines to kill the other two.

Before the panel started its deliberations Wednesday, Assistant U.S. Attorney Jerry Behnke told the jury of nine men and three women that the killings of unarmed detainees violated the law of war.

"Adherence to those rules is very important to the military, to the Marine Corps and to this nation," Behnke said during closing arguments in a Riverside courtroom. "If acts like this are not held accountable, then we as a nation have failed. We follow the rules, we maintain the higher moral ground."

Nazario's attorney, Kevin McDermott, said there was no suggestion to superior officers in the days and months following the killings that Nazario or anyone else had acted inappropriately. He said the government had failed to prove that the detainees were not exhibiting hostile behavior.

"There is no single witness in the living room or the kitchen that can tell you these individuals did not exhibit a hostile act or hostile intent," McDermott said.

The attorney said that when the Marines entered the house, the weapons they found were warm and the place smelled of gun powder residue.

"That house was the definition of hostile act and hostile intent," McDermott said. "The individuals clearly were a cell and clearly had hostile intent. In the blink of an eye, in the beat of a heart, decisions were made."

He told the jury that the decision was of "phenomenal significance" to his client as well as to service members in war.

"Do not let the government turn this into a shooting on some street corner in the U.S.," McDermott said. "Do not make the job harder for the young men in combat."

McDermott told the jury that the government failed in reaching its burden of proof, which in criminal cases is proof beyond a reasonable doubt.

"The evidence in this case has fallen woefully short in determining whether any killing in fact occurred," the defense attorney argued.

Nazario's case is the first involving a former service member to reach trial in a civilian court since Congress authorized such prosecutions under the Military Extraterritorial Judicial Act approved in 2000.

Witnesses for the prosecution during the five day trial included squad mates in the home on the day of the killings. The defense rested without calling any witnesses.

The jury is expected to deliberate until 5 p.m. on Wednesday, and to resume deliberations Thursday morning if no verdict is reached.

[Girlene]

WHoops, My link was all messed up. Here it is, MILITARY: Civilian jury deliberating fate of former Marine

[RedRover]

Wow, things are moving a lot faster than expected. Should be more news soon if deliberations will end for the day at five.

Prayers up (and cigarette lit).

[Girlene]

Ditto that. Prayers up. Don’t smoke too many. I think the jury will try to make it look respectable, get an extra day of jury duty (without a full day of deliberations), and end this thing tomorrow morning. Meanwhile, we can discuss Mark O. Fox’s “Excellent Adventure” travelling across the US trying to find Marines guitly of combat, assistant U.S. Attorney Jerry Behnke’s yammering on about how his “witnesses” committed fraud by not admitting to murder in the middle of the most signifcant battle in recent history.... and so on.

You get my drift.

[xzins]

The defense rested without calling any witnesses.

I don't care how confident the defense felt, I disagree with the above.

I would have had a series of people asked simply: "Did you see Nazario kill any of those men?"

The answer would have been "no."

I then would have asked, "What is the name of the deceased?"

What is the address of the deceased?

Where is the burial place of the deceased?

What is the nationality of the deceased?

Blood type, wounds, etc., etc.,

It would have been bloody well obvious that the government didn't have anything; nothing, nada, zip, zero on Nazario.

They don't have bodies, they don't have witnesses of his involvement, and they don't have anything.

Do I have a reasonable doubt that Nazario cold-blooded murdered anyone at all? You bet I do.

[jude24]

The strategy is sound.

I would have had a series of people asked simply: "Did you see Nazario kill any of those men?" The answer would have been "no." I then would have asked, "What is the name of the deceased?" What is the address of the deceased? Where is the burial place of the deceased? What is the nationality of the deceased? Blood type, wounds, etc., etc., It would have been bloody well obvious that the government didn't have anything; nothing, nada, zip, zero on Nazario.

That is for cross examination.

[xzins]

Ping a lawyer and get a lawyer response! LOL!

[jude24]

Well, in trial work, you don't ask questions if the answer won't help.

It's far more effective to get those facts from the prosecution's witnesses.

[xzins]

I want to put a double nail in their coffin.

How would you do that?

[Girlene]

The strategy is sound.

I'm going to agree, jude. It would be one thing if there were bodies, crime scenes, etc. Let the prosecution prove the first before trying to defend against no bodies, forensics, crime scene, etc. Normally, not calling defense witnesses is a sign of weakness, arrogance, what-have-you. But in this case, what does the jury have to decide? Whether someone was killed in combat or detainee status....with no bodies.

[jazusamo]

I sure hope the defense take on the trial and the jury is correct, it seems scary not to put on any defense at all but I’m sure not the one to criticize them.

[jude24]

Normally, not calling defense witnesses is a sign of weakness, arrogance, what-have-you.

Not necessarily. It can happen when you think the prosecution can't prove their case, or when you think your client can't testify for whatever reason.

[jude24]

I want to put a double nail in their coffin. How would you do that?

You're talking to a Bills fan. A win's a win. It doesn't need to be elegant.

[RedRover]

You're talking to a Bills fan.

LOL! Weren't they the guys who invented "winning ugly"?