Posted on 09/15/2017 9:59:52 PM PDT by Maudeen
Supreme Court asked to intervene after military breaks rules to penalize lieutenant colonel. . .
The Army broke its own rules in its punishment of an officer who, following military protocol, intervened to stop a public “make-out” session by two lesbian subordinate officers, contends an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Lt. Col. Christopher Downey was cited for assault for bumping a camera that inadvertently hit the nose of an Army staffer who was trying to capture the scene on video.
The Thomas More Law Center of Ann Arbor, Michigan, this week petitioned the high court to “correct the injustice done to Lt. Col. Christopher Downey after the United States violated its own regulations, effectively ending his stellar career.”
(Excerpt) Read more at wnd.com ...
The colonel should be given a formal apology from the Department of the Army and be given a star to retire on with thanks for upholding the honor of the US Military.
>>The colonel should be given a formal apology from the Department of the Army and be given a star to retire on with thanks for upholding the honor of the US Military. <<
Absolutely agree.
The Army today is not the Army I know any more.
Where the hell is Mattis on all this?
Were you a Jarhead?
Hard to tell when this happened. Could have been working its way through the system for a while...
yes yes yes
Why does it STILL feel like ObamaDUNGSH*T is president?
Take heart in the fact that there will be a final accounting before which the lesbians and the prosecutors/judges will be called.
Far from it. I was a blue suiter and had the best duty anyone could have in six active years, Biloxi, Sacramento, Azores, and Tampa. But I still wore that Air Force Blue with pride and made Staff Sergeant in only three years and nine months.
I just googled him and found this. LTC Downey was selected ahead of officers from all three of the other major services to become the Presidential Airlift Coordinator for the White House in Washington, D.C. from 2008 to 2010. While serving at the White House, Downey’s direct supervisor described him as “clearly in the top 1% of the handpicked officers of the White House Military Office Operations Directorate and in all of the Lieutenant Colonels I have known in my 20 years of military service.”
Some problems with this story. Article 15 refers to non-judicial punishment itself, in lieu of a Court Martial, to which the person to be punished must agree.
The investigation is under Article 32. That is concluded before an Article 15 is imposed, or a Court Martial is recommended to the convening authority, or the matter dismissed.
As to the matter of the alleged assault, “assault” is not the unwanted physical contact. Assault is the threat of an unwanted physical contact. “Battery” is the unwanted physical contact.
Simply put, Assault is words, Battery is hands, feet, etc, in a contact with a person who did not want the contact.
Also, Battery generally requires intent to batter, intent to cause physical harm, pain, etc. It generally requires “criminal intent.” That would not have occurred in the case as stated.
The colonel’s problem may be that he accepted Article 15 punishment (unwisely) but now wants the record of it removed.
Regardless of the righteousness of his cause, he will have a tough uphill legal battle. In a way, it’s like trying to withdraw a plea-bargained reduced sentence after the case is over.
I wish him luck, but it’s a tough legal battle.
>> Where the hell is Mattis on all this?
Where was he on Haditha?
You got it.
Once he accepted the Article 15 he was stuck with it. He could have turned it down and dared the Army to court-martial him - which would have carried with it a far riskier outcome (conviction, dismissal with resulting loss of his retirement, jail, etc). There is also a chance that the convening authority would have ‘blinked’ and not pursued a court-martial.
But he decided against rolling the dice after consulting counsel (probably wisely) and now he is stuck with the fact that it ended his career. No LTC can survive such a public Article 15 as this. Its the automatic kiss of death to a career.
From the facts, it doesn’t seem to me that he did anything wrong. He correctly intervened to get two in-uniform officers to stop violating regulations in public.
If anything the G-D soldiers who were trying to videotape this drunken makeout session should have been disciplined because material such as this is so demonstrably damaging to the Army image and good order and discipline.
Jeeez ... if that account is accurate, the person who should be relieved of command is General Mark Milley. You have to wonder WTH else there is that we don’t know (ie if Milley disliked this LTC for some private reason) and used the occasion to deep-six him after having his JAGs essentially “induce” the LTC to - UNWISELY - appear without counsel at this meeting. Or maybe the LTC just rubbed him the wrong way with his questions and he just decided to do what 600-lb Army gorillas with stars on their shoulders do when they feel that someone of a lower rank is questioning their judgment.
The only thing I can say (with the experience of having been a JAG at one time and having seen how some flag-ranked officers dealt with various issues) is that its a crapshoot. And if you get the wrong commander who doesn’t have your back because he just doesn’t like you for any, or no, reason, and give him/her a chance to act on it .. well, good luck, but this a military bureaucracy you’re talking about...you will lose even if, in the end, you “win” after some long, drawn out legal process ...
Oh, jeez, now I see that this happened 5 years ago, and that Gen Milley is now the Chief of Staff of the Army. No doubt he was already “annointed” for bigger and better things back in 2012.
Doing anything (justified or not) that remotely appeared to question his judgment was the kiss of death for this LTC’s career.
And why were these 2 dykes not charged with “conduct unbecoming”, and thrown out? Never mind, PC military.
I could say the same of the navy.
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