Posted on 08/01/2007 5:38:02 AM PDT by radar101
CAMP PENDLETON – It is the wild card of the judicial system, a body that can vote to acquit or convict regardless of evidence.
Today at Camp Pendleton, two juries will deliberate the guilt or innocence of two murder suspects – Marine Sgt. Lawrence Hutchins and Cpl. Marshall Magincalda. Their verdicts will help make these courts-martial either footnotes or major cautionary tales in Marine Corps history.
Hutchins and Magincalda played prominent roles when their squad kidnapped and killed Hashim Ibrahim Awad on April 26, 2006, in the rural town of Hamdaniya, Iraq.
Hutchins led the Kilo Company, 3rd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment and suggested the death plot to his men.
Magincalda, the No. 3-ranked member of the unit, helped drag Awad from his home to a roadside hole. There, other Marines shot Awad to death.
All eight Hamdaniya defendants have acknowledged that the abduction and execution took place.
But they said their actions were caused by a variety of compelling factors:
They were following their commanders' lawful orders.
They suffered from combat stress and post-traumatic stress disorder.
They faced pressure from their superiors to get tougher with insurgents.
They acted morally in getting rid of an insurgent so he wouldn't kill more U.S. troops.
On July 20, a jury of three Marine officers and six enlisted men largely sided with one defendant, Cpl. Trent Thomas.
The jurors in that case, all veterans of the Iraq war like Thomas, found him not guilty of murder and sentenced him to a demotion and bad-conduct discharge. Thomas had faced life imprisonment without parole.
Will the Hutchins and Magincalda juries sympathize with the defendants' arguments? Or will they focus on the prosecution's bottom line – that a squad deliberately kidnapped an Iraqi man and shot him to death?
These juries also are packed with Marines who have done combat duty in Iraq. Nearly all of them have received the Combat Action Ribbon, which signifies that they have come under hostile fire. Several have been awarded medals of valor.
Yesterday, Magincalda's lead attorney told jurors that his client resisted Hutchins' plot.
The lawyer, Joseph Low, said Magincalda refused to be a trigger-puller and performed only minor tasks such as spreading AK-47 shells around Awad's body to create the appearance of a firefight between an insurgent and U.S. troops.
“He didn't have the intent. He didn't want to do this,” Low said during his closing statement yesterday.
Magincalda lied about the killing afterward out of fellowship with his comrades, Low added.
“He absolutely refuses to bury a brother to help himself out,” Low said.
The lead prosecutor, Lt. Col. Sean Sullivan, portrayed Magincalda as a full participant in the Hamdaniya incident. He said Magincalda offered suggestions for improving Hutchins' plot, volunteered to be part of the kidnapping team and helped subdue and bind Awad before the execution.
“You're never going to see more evidence of a conspiracy to commit kidnapping and murder,” Sullivan said in his closing statement.
He noted that in previous court proceedings, many of the Hamdaniya defendants admitted to knowing that killing Awad was wrong.
“They knew what they were about to do was a criminal act,” Sullivan said. “What shred of evidence have we heard that justifies taking a man out of his house, dragging him to a hole and shooting him like a dog?”
During his closing statement in the Hutchins case, the prosecutor, Lt. Col. John Baker, implored jurors to convict Hutchins of all the charges against him so “he does not get away with murder.”
Defense attorney Rich Brannon countered that what happened at Hamdaniya was a failure of leadership by Hutchins' superiors.
“All this was a failure of command. When something goes wrong, they walk over and say, 'Here is the failure,' ” Brannon said while pointing to Hutchins.
Rick Rogers: (760) 476-8212; rick.rogers@uniontrib.com
I’m thankful I no longer have to serve on courts martial; I don’t think I could fairly judge Marines in combat who kill the enemy, even under such circumstances as those at Hamdaniya. May God help them all.
TC
The article states that the jury in Cpl Trent’s trial was made up of 3 officers and 6 enlisted. I always thought that if an enlisted was tried by courts-martial they could, at their request, have up to 1/3 of the panel enlisted. This article states that 2/3 of the panel in Cpl Trent’s trial were enlisted. Can you clarify?
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