IRAQ: Lawyer: Marine tricked in prisoner killing case

Marine Sgt. Jermaine Nelson made admissions during a taped interview with a Naval Criminal Investigative Service agent that could go a long way toward convicting him of killing Iraqi prisoners during the fight for Fallouja in late 2004.

On the tape, played in a preliminary hearing last week at Camp Pendleton, Nelson said that he, Sgt. Ryan Weemer and Sgt. Jose Nazario fatally shot four prisoners rather than take time to process them according to the laws of war.

But Joseph Low, Nelson's attorney, argued in a Camp Pendleton courtroom Monday that the statements should be ruled inadmissible because they were obtained, in effect, through trickery.

Low told a judge, Lt. Col. Jeffrey Meeks, that the NCIS agent did not read Nelson his rights until midway through the interrogation. Also, Low said, Nelson had just been told by a noncommissioned officer that he had done nothing wrong and thus felt he was free to talk in gruesome detail.

It's common in military and civilian courts for defense attorneys to try to keep juries from hearing damaging statements their clients made to the police.

But the issue of whether the Marine Corps has protected the legal rights of Marines accused of abuse in Iraq has arisen before.

The prosecution of Lt. Col. Jeffrey Chessani, the battalion commander in the Haditha case involving the deaths of 24 Iraqis in 2005, may unravel unless the prosecutors succeed in getting an appeals court to overrule a military judge. That judge, Col. Steven Folsom, ruled that the convening authority erred by letting a lawyer involved in the early investigation of the Haditha killings sit in on meetings where the case was discussed.

If the Chessani case falls apart, the case against Sgt. Frank Wuterich, the squad leader whose troops did the killings in Haditha, may also be thrown out on similar grounds.

In the Nelson case, Meeks set a hearing for later in the summer to hear arguments.

Tony Perry, at Camp Pendleton.

Photo: Sgt. Jermaine Nelson, accused of murder in the alleged killing of prisoners in Fallouja in late 2004.

Comments

[MorallyRight1]

It is just yet another example wherein a Marine's Constitutional rights were just plain 'overlooked' when it came to military justice! It happened to the Camp Pendleton 8. It happened to the Haditha Marines. And, the list goes on and on.....Yet, one case is thrown out, then another sticks. Why is that? Possibly prejudice? Nope. The plain and simple truth is that the Uniform Code of Military Justice is above the laws of the land that these Heroes protect. Simply put: Those in command of the military justice process do not have to abide by our Constitution or our laws. They have their own. Furthermore, when one enlists they give up any and all rights they had as a civilian. They become property of the government. Nothing more, nothing less.

[RD]

If we were fighting an actual army whose personnel were wearing uniforms or any other distinguishing garments etc.. then Im sure there would be alot less of this going on. But when the person who will potentially kill you looks like every other citizen roaming around then i say better to be safe than dead yourself. This is war not an Xbox game.

[keith]

Here's the view of the liberal anti-war crowd -

"John Dickerson and Dahlia Lithwick of Slate suggested that the Iraqis should be able to put the Marines on trial even though 85% of Iraqi Sunnis opposed coalition forces:[17]

"Let's let the Iraqis put the Americans alleged to have committed these crimes on trial. The United States wants to encourage the fledgling Iraqi institution of democracy, right? That's why we wanted Saddam tried in Iraq, and through the Iraqi judicial system--both to build up its legitimacy and to give Iraqis the sense of ownership that comes with having control over the legal process. Why, then, shouldn't we also turn over our own soldiers who were involved in either the Haditha massacre or any of the other possible massacres for trial under the Iraqi justice system?""

That's right - Iraq should be able to put our soldiers on trial.

[plankbob]

From Army Maj. Gen. Eldon Bargewell's report on the Haditha massacre:
"Statements made by the chain of command during interviews for this investigation, taken as a whole, suggest that Iraqi civilian lives are not as important as U.S. lives, their deaths are just the cost of doing business, and that the Marines need to get 'the job done' no matter what it takes. These comments had the potential to desensitize the Marines to concern for the Iraqi populace and portray them all as the enemy even if they are noncombatants."