A major Iraq War crimes case was upended Wednesday when the military's highest court tossed the conviction of a former Camp Pendleton Marine accused of murdering an unarmed man in Hamdaniya, Iraq in 2006. Sgt. Lawrence Hutchins III, the former squad leader of the "Pendleton 8" as supporters in San Diego called them, was convicted in 2007 and is serving an 11-year sentence in the brig at Marine Corps Air Station Miramar. The military accused Hutchins of being the ringleader in a plot to capture and kill a suspected insurgent at the height of the war. When they couldn’t find...
