This getting old is getting on my nerves.
Posted on 06/09/2008 6:32:39 PM PDT by RedRover
Attorneys representing Marine Lt. Col Jeffrey Chessani will find out June 16 whether the presiding judge in the “Haditha Massacre” case will grant a defense motion to dismiss his charges because of undue command influence.
If Folsom denies the defense motion Chessani will stand general court-martial July 21 for alleged dereliction of duty and orders violations, said Richard Thompson, chief counsel of the civilian law firm representing him.
The veteran combat Marine is the highest ranking officer to be charged with a crime in the discredited massacre investigation. Four enlisted men and three officers under his command were also charged with war crimes. Five of them have already been exonerated during pre-trail legal maneuvers and 1st Lt. Andrew Grayson was found not guilty last week of a laundry list of related charges.
The day before Grayson went to trial, military judge Lt. Col. Steven Folsom deferred making a decision on a defense motion by Chessani’s lawyers asking that the case be dismissed “with prejudice” for alleged undue command influence in the convening authority’s decision to prosecute the former commander of 3rd battalion, 1st Marines in Iraq.
Even with a favorable decision by Folsom, Chessani is not out of the woods, Thompson said. Folsom could dismiss the charges “without prejudice,” leaving the door open for Chessani to be charged again.
One member of Chessani’s defense team noted that government prosecutors have already shown they will go to any length to obtain a conviction in the broadest, most expensive criminal investigation in contemporary military history.
“Why wouldn’t they?” he said. “We are talking about prosecutors still trying to maintain the fiction there was no incoming fire after the IED went off and that the huge firefight on Viper was a separate incident.”
Four enlisted members of a rifle squad Chessani command killed 15 civilians and eight insurgents hiding among them after a remotely detonated IED killed a squad member and wounded two others riding in a convoy. About 500 meters away on a road called Viper another squad of Marines was embroiled in a morning-long grenade fight with insurgents that left nine Marines wounded.
The ambushed infantrymen were later accused by Time magazine and Congressman John Murtha with going berserk; hunting down innocent civilians and shooting them in cold blood. The subsequent investigation showed that none of the circumstances cited by Time and Murtha proved to be true.
Last week 1st Lt. Andrew Grayson, the first of three defendants to face general court-martial in the Haditha incident, was found not guilty of obstruction of justice, making false statements, and attempting to obtain a fraudulent discharge by a seven-member jury panel of fellow Marine officers.
His exoneration followed a 30-month, multi-million dollar, world-wide investigation and five-day court-martial at Camp Pendleton that took the panel five hours to dispose of.
Grayson was attached to Chessani’s command in Iraq as an intelligence officer. He is the sixth of eight original defendants cleared of any wrongdoing in the incident. The panel's rapid verdict put the already weak prosecution case in total disarray, several attorneys involved in the case said.
Chessani is awaiting general court-martial for dereliction of duty and orders violations for allegedly failing to investigate and report the incident. He faces dismissal from the service, loss of all retirement benefits, and three years in prison if convicted.
The criminal charges against Chessani stem from a house-to-house, room-by-room battle that four of his enlisted Marines engaged in on November 19, 2005, after being ambushed by insurgents in Haditha. In the day long battle that followed one Marine was killed and 11 others from Kilo Company, 3/1 were wounded.
Folsom’s ruling follows testimony last Monday by Gen. James N. Mattis and the conspicuous absence of Lt. Gen Samuel Helland in the matter. The prosecution called Mattis to refute defense claims he was unduly influenced by Col John Ewers, the Marine lawyer who investigated Chessani’s command in Iraq for an Army general and later became Mattis’ personal legal counselor as Staff Judge Advocate of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force.
Before being appointed the 1st MEF SJA Ewers was assigned to investigate the alleged massacre at Haditha, Iraq in the winter of 2006 for Army Maj. Gen. Eldon Bargewell. He was ordered to look into the matter following allegations by a Time magazine reporter that Chessani had covered up the November 19, 2005 murders of 24 innocent civilians by a squad of Marines under his command.
Ewers was still Mattis’ personal attorney when Mattis decided to bring charges against Chessani on December 21, 2006. He remained in the position when Helland took over responsibility for prosecuting Chessani after Mattis was promoted to four-star rank last November 1 and transferred.
“The prosecution made a colossal blunder not calling Lt. Gen. Helland to testify,” opined Thompson, who presides over the Ann Arbor-based Thomas More Law Center. “Folsom has already decided there is evidence of inappropriate command influence and it is now the prosecution’s burden to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that it didn’t occur. Without Helland’s testimony to corroborate Mattis they failed to meet that burden.”
Mattis testified that he was not influenced by Ewers. Last month Ewers testified that he sat in on at least 25 meetings between Mattis and the lawyers from Central Command counseling Mattis about the Haditha investigation while Mattis was in command of both organizations.
Mattis brought the charges against Chessani under the aegis of Central Command where Ewers ostensibly had no authority or influence. At the time Lt. Col. Bill Riggs was the SJA of Central Command.
The defense maintains that Ewers’ mere presence at the meetings by itself represents undue command influence because he outranked the lawyers who were advising Gen. Mattis.
According to both officers’ testimony Ewers was a potted plant that sat mute while Mattis was counseled by Riggs and other attorneys of lesser ranks from Central Command. Mattis told the court he remained an island unto himself and never asked or received legal advice from Ewers while he was formulating his decision.
It is not the first time undue command influence has been charged. Riggs found himself in hot water last summer after he contacted Lt. Col. Paul Ware, the investigating officer in a related case, and criticized him for holding the government to too high of a standard when evaluating the charges against an enlisted Marine.
Ware, the IO in the murder case against exonerated Marine LCpl Justin Sharratt, took the unusual action of revealing what he viewed as an egregious case of undue command influence by Riggs.
“I viewed Lt. Col. Riggs’ comments as inappropriate and imprudent. … I was … offended and surprised by this conversation,” Ware responded in an email.
Subsequently Riggs recused himself from that case.
Military courts consider unlawful command influence the most egregious violation of military justice because it irreparably taints the opinions of prospective jurors, Richard Thompson said.
According to Thompson, Folsom’s determination that there was evidence of undue command influence forces prosecutors to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that: (1) the facts upon which the unlawful command influence is based are untrue; (2) those facts do not constitute unlawful command influence; or (3) the unlawful command influence will not affect the proceedings.
Not meaning any disrespect, but generally speaking, once a commissioned officer of the United States, a Marine, or even a lowly old FReeper has earned respect, they don't need to wear it on their shoulder for other's to notice.
You might want to jot that down in your blackberry for further reference.
Any takers on a bet that the prosecutors were told to not call Helland? Protecting Helland is more important than working for a (an unjust) coviction against Chessani?
What you guys pickin’ on the blind guy for?
You are still pretty young, and just a bit too naive concerning unethical lawyers; including prosecutors and judges. A few years in the real world of practicing law and you will understand and appreciate many of the comments about the prosecutors in these cases.
The real world is not like your law school professors portrayed it.
Darling, you’re in yellow!
What are they protecting Helland from?
You mean holding on until he gets his next star and someone else is the convening authority?
The way they been dragging this thing out, no telling who the Gestapo thug running the circus will be when the big top folds in Haditha and moves on to the next town.
I don't even know what that means, but you won't earn any respect by breezing into a thread and calling somebody "prejudiced" and "ignorant" because that person has closely followed a disgraceful case like Haditha and voiced his opinion.
I'm well aware that there are plenty of JAG lawyers who have integrity and a solid moral compass even as they work hard to do their jobs to the best of their abilities - - in the fair pursuit of justice.
That has not been the case with the prosecutors and investigators in the Haditha mess (as well as some other cases) and if you don't understand that, then you haven't been paying attention. Go get yourself up to speed before you get your underpants in a twist. RedRover's site, 'Defend Our Marines' has all the information you could hope for. You should check it out.
WOW Red, you are just getting too fancy for us little folks. First Google and now "Chicago" what next?
LOL! Congrats my FRiend. You have certainly earned some recognition for all your hard work.
I have! We have dinner occasionally. He thinks the Haditha trials are a BAD joke. You ought to hear what he had to say about Abutt Grab. He was ON that mess.
Does ‘Chicago’ have on-line content? I would like to see that article, too.
I just love it when you talk sweet to us!!!
LOL!
Yes, though I guess the magazine comes out before they put it online. Same with the Evan Vela story. I thought it’d be online today but wasn’t last I looked.
We’ll see. I have no idea what they said! (This is the article they called Kristinn about.)
BTW, I call dibs on the light beige umbrella with the beach chair!
We’ll get to the article in good time. I’m still digesting. I can tell you that the Appeal may take awhile. They are still trying to get a Record of Trial. So it isn’t in the hands of the appellate attorney yet. But I’ll talk about that later.
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New Direction for War on Terrorists: Send Service Vets over 60
I am over 60 and the Armed Forces think I am too old to track down terrorists. You can't be older than 42 to join the military. They've got the whole thing backasswards. Instead of sending 18-year olds off to fight, they ought to take us old guys. You shouldn't be able to join the military until you're at least 35.
For starters:
Researchers say 18-year olds think about sex every 10 seconds. Old guys think about sex only a couple of times a day, leaving us more than 28,000 additional seconds per day to concentrate on the enemy.
Young guys haven't lived long enough to be cranky, and a cranky soldier is a dangerous soldier. My back hurts! I can't sleep, I'm tired and hungry. We are impatient and maybe letting us kill someone that desperately deserves it will make us feel better and shut us up for a while.
An 18-year old doesn't even like to get up before 10am. Old guys always get up early to pee so what the hell. Besides, like I said, I'm tired and can't sleep and since I'm already up, I may as well be killing some fanatical terrorist.
If captured we couldn't spill the beans because we'd forget where we put them. In fact, name, rank, and serial number would be a real brainteaser.
Boot camp would be easier for old guys. We're used to getting screamed and yelled at, and we're used to soft food. We've also developed an appreciation for guns. We've been using them for years as an excuse to get out of the house, away from the screaming and yelling.
They could lighten up on the obstacle course, however. I've been in combat and didn't see a single 20-foot wall with rope hanging over the side, nor did I ever do any push ups after completing basic training. I can hear the drill sgt in the NEW army now, "get down and give me....ER...one."
Actually, the running part is kind of a waste of energy, too. I've never seen anyone outrun a bullet.
An 18-year old has the whole world ahead of him. He's still learning to shave, to start up a conversation with a pretty girl. He still hasn't figured out that a baseball cap has a brim to shade his eyes, not the back of his head.
These are all great reasons to keep our kids at home to learn a little more about life before sending them into harm's way.
Let us old guys track down those dirty rotten coward terrorists. The last thing an enemy would want to see right now is a couple of million pissed-off old farts with attitude and automatic weapons who know their best years are already behind them.
If nothing else, put us on border patrol and plant grass. We're very good at keeping people off our lawn. We will have it secured the first night!
THAT is a classic! Bookmarked.
LOL! I think the old boy has a pretty good idea, Red. All of us better start doing that one pushup a day to get in shape.
BTW, you can have all the unmrellas, I’m going out on the yacht with Smooth. :)
Lily sent it to me, and it makes me smile everytime I read it. I don’t know the source.
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