The NCIS and JAG Corps all stated in their investigation and trial that HIT LISTS did NOT exist.
I have posted copies of the Census reports, see link above.
The Census reports clearly named names and had photos of the personnel who were under suspicion by the battalion, with complete descriptions of the family, their address, occupation and suspected activities.
While BueLancer surely has some valid points, I am afraid he is just unfamiliar with this and other cases.
But did you notice his own statements on something? The Convictionrate?
85% or so were guilty please before trial? WHY?
Then, 50% of the remaining are found guilty??
85+7 = 92% conviction rate...any court in the US get that accurate??
For instance -- I can accept that most LEGITIMATE convictions would involve charges of murder against "friendly forces", "assassination attempts against friendlies", murders associated with robbery or rape, murder for profit, etc, etc..... ALL of which, and worse, have taken place in the military.. I have no problem with charges and convictions in these cases..
However — it stretches credulity to think of going after a specific individual or group of individuals officially designated “targets” or “enemy” and come to any conclusion on the event of their deaths as anything more than cause to celebrate....
Am I THAT old and that much out of touch with the current world?
It reads to me that this is a problem with the investigatory end of the case ... NCIS and the Navy/Marine equivalents of CID and MPI. It's a garbage in/garbage out type of situation. If the commanders get bad advice and information from their investigatory arms, they're going to make bad decisions ... or, at least, uninformed ones. So, no, I will grant you that I was not aware of the information that you posted here and elsewhere. Quite frankly, I tend to ignore threads pertaining to "prime TV" types of cases. A lot of times, information in threads citing webpages or news extracts is totally at odds with the real facts that are going on in the courtroom. I know that, in the GRANER case .. in which I have personal knowledge .. a lot of the stuff that was talked about in the press and online with respect to the evidence in the case, witness statements, etcetera, was completely wrong with what was presented at trial. There were numerous individuals here who asserted that, with the information that they had, they were sure that Graner and his merry band of thugs were being railroaded, were being framed, were being hung out to dry by the Command. They were .. and still are .. completely wrong. I heard all of the evidence. I saw documents that did not go the panel which, if they had seen them, would only have reinforced the guilt of the whole bunch of them.
Sometimes, the surrounding evidence is strong enough to take it to court. That's why I have such faith in the system itself. All of these men .. and those in likewise cases .. were either acquitted or had their charges dropped once they got to court. It's crappy sometimes, but the Command can only act on what evidence and statements are presented by their investigative arms. Again .. garbage in/garbage out.
Finally, with respect to why 85% of cases coming to court end up as guilty pleas, well, you've got to remember that probably 75% of all cases are for relatively minor .. but continuous and recurring .. offenses. They're for things like AWOL/desertion, drug use, insubordination, minor assaults or thefts. They can usually get very good deals from the Convening Authority for simplifying the system and pleading guilty. If the evidence is against them and they don't plead guilty, and are found guilty by either the military judge or the panel, there isn't a hope that they will be allowed to stay in the Army: they have shown no remorse and no sign of rehabilitation potential. However, if they plead guilty and can show that they've changed their ways, either by getting some of their chain of command to come in and testify on their behalf during sentencing .. and that happens more than you would expect .. or by showing that they've been good steady soldiers during the time between the preferral of charges and the court date, they have a VERY good chance of being allowed to remain in the Service if they so desire. On the other hand, the ones who simply want to get it over with and get out of the Service, plead guilty to speed up the process and ask to be discharged. If they ask for it, they always are. So, it's the mentality of the accuseds in the military that lead to the high amount of guilty pleas and, ultimately, convictions in the military justice system. I would bet that, if you went to the civilian system and added up those who are pleading guilty to those who are pleading "no contest", which, in my mind, is a convenient fiction that still means that they're guilty, you would probably have close to the same number of convictions. In talking to individuals who have set on civilian juries, most of the time, the morning of the case, the accused changes his plea from not guilty with a jury to guilty with a judge alone. Very few civil criminal cases, in proportion to all of those that are charged, carry on through a complete not guilty with a jury case. If they did, the civilian justice system would grind to a halt, just as would the military system if every accused opted for a fully contested jury trial.
Also, as to the idea that, of the 15% in the military who contest their charges in court, 50% are convicted; there's a relatively simple reason for that ... they ARE guilty. With most of the easy cases being disposed of before trial, either by non-judicial punishment or summary court or by a guilty plea deal with the Convening Authority, usually only very serious crimes such as rape, murder, aggravated assault, and the like are contested. Some accuseds simply can't face or admit the fact that they committed the crime and, as a result, they plead not guilty even if the evidence is overwhelming. Others plead not guilty because they have nowhere else to go: the charges are serious enough that the Convening Authority won't make a pretrial deal for a guilty plea with a result that the accused wants to agree to. With nowhere to go, the default position in military courts .. if you don't specifically plead guilty .. is a not guilty plea with a full panel of officers sitting in judgment.
So, this particular case or series of cases may be outside the norm for the military justice system, but, see, I have every faith that the system works and the proper findings and decisions will be made by those in the system. And, as you can see, where the rubber meets the road, when the accused has had his day in court, in these cases, the justice system worked as designed. If the investigative system did not, well, then that's the system that needs fixing.