The azstarnet reports:
A Davis-Monthan airman was acquitted Tuesday in the slaying of another airman in 2007 during a south-side house party, an official said.
A court martial panel found Senior Airman Philip Andre Howard not guilty of the June 2007 death of Airman 1st Class Brian Santos, said Capt. Stacie Shafran, a D-M spokeswoman.
The LifeSiteNews.com is reporting:
While Hasan recovers at the Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, the Army is readying itself to charge Hasan in military court, where he could face the death-penalty. But prosecutors will have to charge Hasan under the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ), which was amended in 2004 to include “Laci and Conner’s Law” or the Unborn Victims of Violence Act (UVVA).
The UVVA requires that the justice system charge the perpetrator of a violent crime against a pregnant woman, resulting in death or bodily injury to her unborn child, with committing a separate and distinct offence against the mother’s unborn child. The law specifies that the punishment applied for the injury or death of the child must be the same – with the exception of the death penalty – as if “that injury or death occurred to the unborn child’s mother.”
Gawker, an unusual blog has information about Major Hasan’s application for a concealed carry permit in VA. Fort Hood, like all military installations, will have a regulation concerning the possession and carrying of weapons on post. Usually the weapon has to be stored in the Armory.
Here is the complete application. The blog also notes:
Before 1995, according to the Roanoke County Circuit Court clerk’s office, Virginia law required a psychiatric evaluation and documented explanation for why a resident needed to carry a concealed handgun. But by the time Hasan applied in October 1995, all that was required was a criminal background check and certification of a gun safety course. For some reason proof of having completed individual infantry training in the U.S. Army (next slide) was not enough for the Commonwealth of Virginia when it came to gun safety and Hasan had to take an NRA course as well.
Will Major Hasan successfully use PTSD as a defense, or will it at least become a mitigating factor to be considered. If the trial is at Fort Hood, as seems likely at the moment, many of the Members (jury) panel will already have quite a bit of extra-judicial information.
Here are some links relating to secondary traumatization.
Zimmering, Munroe, & Gulliver, Secondary Traumatization in Mental Health Care Providers, 20 Psych. Times (Apr. 2003).
I’m not posting much at the moment on the Fort Hood tragedy. People can follow the news as easily as I can. However, this article by Will Heaven in the (U.K.) Daily Telegraph did raise an eyebrow.
Fort Hood shooting: the death penalty would make Nidal Malik Hasan an Islamic martyr
The implication of the article is that commanders should make a political decision that seeking the death penalty is not a good idea. Equally I suppose an argument could be made that the defense should make the geo-politics an issue because anything that might be “mitigating” must be considered when seeking to impose the death penalty. I’m not an advocate of the death penalty for various reasons; a political decision is not one of the reasons I’m against the death penalty though.
Anyone who knows anything about death penalty cases knows that allegations of ineffective assistance of counsel (IAC) will figure significantly in an appeal. It’s given that no matter how hard they work they’ll be accused of incompetence.
Today, the Supreme Court summarily reversed a Sixth Circuit case in which the circuit court found IAC. Here is a link to the court’s order in Bobby v. Van Hook. It is of interest because the court was critical of the circuit courts reliance on the ABA Guidelines for the Appointment and Performance of Defense Counsel in Death Penalty Cases. Here are the Guidelines.
/tip SCOTUSBlog.
Frustrated with Google Reader, I began using and recommending Morning Coffee as a Firefox plug-in. I still think MC is a good tool if you are only interested in looking at certain websites once or twice a day, or once a week. However, for me that’s not flexible enough.
Thanks to Practicing Law in the 21st Century-A Law & Technology Blog, I have been directed to www.feedly.com as a plug-in to FF. This plug-in is a great alternative to Google Reader, and combined with MC can give you flexibility in keeping track of what’s happening out there. Basically it is a place to collate all of your RSS (or similar) feeds.d
JDNews of Jacksonville, NC, reports:
Private Jonathan Law, 21, was placed in custody of authorities at the Camp Lejeune Brig Sunday, for the alleged homicide of Cpl. Joshua E. Hartzell, 22, according to a release from 2d Marine Logistics Group.
Law was moved Saturday night from Pitt County Memorial Hospital, where he was treated for self-inflicted wounds, to the brig, according to the release.
Where Will They Get the Troops? Preparing Undeployables for the Afghan Front
As the Obama administration debates whether to send tens of thousands of extra troops to Afghanistan, an already overstretched military is increasingly struggling to meet its deployment numbers. Surprisingly, one place it seems to be targeting is military personnel who go absent without leave (AWOL) and then are caught or turn themselves in.
Here are four very good tips from Evan Schaeffer of The Trial Practice Tips Weblog:
Court-Martial Trial Practice Blog
