Chessani's Haditha case dismissal stands

NCT:

A military appeals court has refused to reconsider its decision upholding the dismissal of charges against Camp Pendleton's Lt. Col. Jeffrey Chessani, who is accused of dereliction of duty for not ordering a full-scale investigation into the slaying of two dozen Iraqi civilians in 2005.

The U.S. Navy-Marine Corps Court of Criminal Appeals in Washington rejected a request from the Marine Corps to reconsider its March decision upholding a military judge's ruling that unlawful command influence irreparably tainted the government's case against Chessani.

"I think it speaks volumes how they just stamped the request 'Denied' without any comment at all," said Chessani's attorney Brian Rooney.

...

Rooney said he anticipates the Marine Corps will appeal because the ruling may affect the prosecution of Staff Sgt. Frank Wuterich, who is charged with nine counts of involuntary manslaughter in the killings that occurred in the city of Haditha.

Chessani's charges were ordered dismissed last year by Col. Steven Folsom. That ruling found that a legal adviser to then-Lt. Gen. James Mattis, who was overseeing all the Haditha prosecutions, should not have had any role in the case.

...
The Marine Corps should go ahead and dismiss the Wuterich cases too. There is only a very remote chance that further appeals will change the decision to dismiss the case. The cases have always had the taint of command influence which was evident from the Murtha comments about the case. Officials have sought to avoid that aspect of the case by focusing on other elements of command influence.

Comments

  1. James W. Weirick 8:14 PM

    You are correct about any appeal changing the ruling to dismiss the case. The problem is, however, the dismissal was without prejudice, so the charges can be brought again.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Should Republicans go ahead and add Supreme Court Justices to head off Democrats

Washington Post: Some Democrats eye adding more justices to the Supreme Court to change its ideological bent The once-remote idea has gained the attention of liberals angered by the GOP push to remake the federal courts. Probably the easy way to defeat this court-packing scheme is for Trump to propose doing the same thing now.  It would lead to Democrat denunciations and claims that it would be wrong, thereby blowing up any attempt by them in the unfortunate event of Democrats winning a presidential election.
Read more

29 % of companies say they are unlikely to keep insurance after Obamacare

Conn Carroll: A new survey of 368 midsize to large companies found that 29% of them are considering terminating their active employee health care plans when Obamacare is full implemented in 2014. Only 71% of employers surveyed said they did not expect to drop their health coverage, while 20% said they did not know and 9% said they were planning to exit. The latest survey, conducted by Towers Watson, echoes an ealier survey by McKinsey & Co. finding that 30% of private-sector employers were planning to drop their employee health insurance coverage by 2014. When the Congressional Budget Office crunched Obamacare's spending numbers, they estimated that only 7% of employees currently covered by employer-sponsored plans would lose their plans. ... This means the cost of the health care fiasco will be hundreds of billions more than estimated by the CBO and Congressional Democrat. It is also clear that Obama's pledge that you could keep your health care plan if you wanted t
Read more

Bin Laden's concern about Zarqawi's remains

James Robbins: ... Bin Laden suggests that President Bush should allow Zarqawi’s body to be returned to his family in Jordan, but this is a matter that is up to the Jordanian government, which so far has not shown much interest in facilitating a homecoming. Bin Laden mocks King Abdullah II, calling him a Coalition minion, and asking “w hat scares you about Abu Musab after he’s dead? You know that his funeral, if allowed to happen, would be a huge funeral showing the extent of sympathy with the mujahedin.” A large crowd would definitely turn out, though most people would be on hand to demonstrate their anger and disgust. Last November’s hotel bombings in Amman , masterminded by Zarqawi, are still fresh in people’s memory, and mentioning them to Jordanians has the same visceral impact as memory of the 9/11 attacks does here. Jordan has adopted a zero-tolerance policy towards those who choose to mourn the country’s least favorite son, and four opposition members of parliament who paid con
Read more