KPLU News reports.
Key pieces of evidence were lost or never collected in the case of five Washington-based soldiers charged with murdering Afghan civilians. That emerged Tuesday in an evidentiary hearing against the alleged ringleader – Staff Sgt. Calvin Gibbs.
Stars & Stripes reports.
A U.S. soldier will spend more than two years in prison after a military judge found him guilty in a court-martial Tuesday of throwing a crowbar that struck a German motorcyclist in the head.
Stars & Stripes reports.
Military.com reports:
The soldier who tried to blow the whistle on an alleged plot to kill Afghan civilians for sport has been put in solitary confinement in a windowless cell for 23 hours a day, his family said.
The father of Spc. Adam Winfield is objecting to the conditions at Joint Base Lewis-McChord south of Seattle, and wants the soldier moved to a different facility.
I posted before about the CO of USS OHIO being detached for cause and the number of Navy CO’s DFC’d this year. Now Navy Times has obtained a copy of documents related this case which appears to include a copy of the command investigation.
The arrival of a birthday card in the ship’s mail addressed to Capt. Ronald Murray Gero, who was turning 56, marked the beginning of the end of his command of the guided-missile submarine Ohio.
It appears various members of the crew started collecting evidence, and then:
USA Today is reporting that Morlock has been referred to trial non-capital. As does Reuters, MSNBC and other news outlets.
Inside Bay Area has a piece about corruption in the California National Guard.
From 1986 until her retirement last year, Jaffe’s job with the California Army National Guard was to give away money — the federally subsidized student-loan repayments and cash bonuses — paid for by federal taxpayers nationwide — that the Guard is supposed to use to attract new recruits and encourage Guard members to re-enlist.
Instead, according to a Guard auditor turned federal whistle-blower, as much as $100 million has gone to soldiers who didn’t qualify for the incentives, including some who got tens of thousands of dollars more than the program allows.
The other day I had posted about the unauthorized release of the Stryker Brigade Article 32 report and a Coast Guard report on the San Diego Bay incident. My question at the time was an appearing trend of unauthorized releases of Article 32, UCMJ, investigation reports. There is more on the Stryker Brigade case.
The News Tribune reports:
Col. Thomas Molloy found that Spc. Jeremy Morlock should be held accountable for any actions he might have committed. Molloy noted that Morlock was viewed by fellow soldiers “as an effective, reliable, engaged team leader,” rather than the picture painted by defense attorneys of a prescription drug-impaired soldier who was bullied by his squad leader.
CNN has this report on the Morlock Article 32, UCMJ, hearing.
A U.S. soldier accused of killing civilians in Afghanistan should face a court-martial on murder and other charges, an Army officer has recommended.
The recommendation, included in a document obtained by CNN, comes after prosecutors laid out their evidence against Spc. Jeremy Morlock in a hearing last week. Morlock is one of five members of the Army’s 5th Stryker Brigade who have been accused of premeditated murder in a series of incidents between January and May.
The Seattle Times reports (on a Ramrod Five/Stryker Brigade case):
The Army has postponed a hearing that had been scheduled for Tuesday for Staff Sgt. David Bram, who faces charges of conspiracy, striking another soldier, cruelty, dereliction of duty and impeding an investigation while serving in southern Afghanistan.
Military.com reports (no surprise here, the surprise would be not seeking a capital referral):
Here is an interesting piece from Wired about the potential of command cover up and similar acrtivity in this set of cases.
I got to the Wired piece through this from congressmatters.com blog.
When bad news breaks it has become almost routine for those at the top to disavow all knowledge and let the hammer come down on those well down in the hierarchy. The pattern showed up again twice this week, and is now so common as to be almost standardized.
Court-Martial Trial Practice Blog