Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan’s defense attorney skirmished with Army commanders Wednesday over the timing of a sanity examination for the Fort Hood gunman, saying that his client is still too medically impaired to participate.
So begins a piece in the Dallas News. What’s the flaw. There is no judge that attorney Galligan can go to or appeal to.
"This is getting dirty," lawyer John Galligan said of the Army. "These guys have made it clear that they’re going for blood."
The Navy’s rule forcing sailors to “promptly” tell their commanding officers if they have been arrested for an off-base drunken-driving violation is unconstitutional, the Navy and Marine Corps’s highest military judges have ruled.
And so begins a Navy Times article on United States v. Serianne.
I have posted before about the new DoD regulation that requires persons E-6 and above to report all civilian convictions.
Here are a couple of interesting items exploring the mental health issues potentially involved with Major Nidal Malik Hasan’s shooting rampage at Fort Hood – conclusion, he’s sane.
Howard Bloom asks, What if Nidal Malik Hasan is Sane? Psychology Today blog.
Were they the insane acts of a man driven over the edge by the vicarious stress of war? By the strain of hearing horror stories from the traumatized veterans of battles in Iraq and Iran?
No pay due, not needed. Army Times reports that a captain stationed at Fort Lewis has plead guilty to stealing about $690,000.00 while in Iraq. No court-martial.
I have posted in connection with some comments about Major Hasan and his desire to have patients prosecuted at court-martial for war crimes and other offenses while deployed to Iraq.
Major Hasan’s war crimes trial requests, 17 November 2009.
The issue has gained new attention with the recent mass shootings at Fort Hood that killed 13 and wounded 43. In the weeks before the rampage, the accused gunman, Maj. Nidal M. Hassan, an Army psychiatrist, told colleagues and Army lawyers that he wanted to report soldiers who had admitted in counseling sessions that they witnessed or committed war crimes in Iraq or Afghanistan. War crimes can include acts like torture, murder, sexual assault and cruel treatment.
A number of articles are circulating and the blogosphere is discussing the obligations of Major Hasan’s counsel to do anything and everything to avoid the death penalty as a sentence at his court-martial. Here is an interesting item, not that it’s going to be relevant to the Fort Hood case involving Major Hasan, but as an example of how closely IAC is looked at in a death penalty case.
Karen Franklin first notes that:
Here is a good site for information about Stolen Valor Act issues.
Web Site Aims to Uncover Fakers in Fatigues
I’ve posted before about different cases where a service-member or civilian have “invented” their military career. Two recent examples are here and here. Now there’s another. Military.com reports that a retired senior chief petty officer appears to have fabricated his presence in USS COLE when the ship was attacked.
In early November, retired Senior Chief Jeffrey Sparenberg was the guest of honor at military heritage day in Delaware.
Sparenberg spent 23 years in the Navy, including time on the destroyer Cole, and he was at Fort DuPont State Park that day to donate a flag that he said flew over the Cole shortly after it was attacked nine years ago.
Sane or insane, Major Hasan’s mental state before and during his alleged offenses will be raised in his court-martial. Death penalty cases are different so sayeth they U.S. Supreme Court. Everything must be raised that could possibly have some impact on either the finding of guilt to a capital charge or in sentencing. The Supreme Court decision in Porter v. McCollum makes it clear that failure to raise mental health issues, including PTSD, will likely lead to a finding of ineffective assistance of counsel. A distinction can be argued between Porter and Hasan — one was in combat, the other about to get into vicarious PTSD issues. But any competent attorney for Major Hasan has to consider the mental health issues as vital to the defense presentation.
Been gone for a family emergency so I won’t go too far back. But . . .
DoD reports that:
Seattleweekly.com reports:
Having now admitted to murder, Fort Lewis Spc. Ivette Davila today awaits word on whether she will face the death penalty for it.
Davila, 23, an Army chemical specialist, is charged with killing Staff Sgt. Timothy Miller and Sgt. Randi Miller in their Parkland home March 2, 2008, soaking their bodies in muriatic acid and kidnapping their 7-month-old daughter.
Court-Martial Trial Practice Blog