CPL MAGINCALDA IS FREE: HONORABLE DISCHARGE

LITTLE BIRD | 08/02/07 | RACEBANNON

[RaceBannon]

PENDLETON 8 Marine freed after being convicted.

CPL MAGINCALDA IS A FREE MAN, HE WAS GIVEN AN HONORABLE DISCHARGE, ALL PAY, ALL BACK PAY AND BENEFITS.

more to follow

[RaceBannon]

PENDLETON 8 Marine freed after being convicted.

CPL MAGINCALDA IS A FREE MAN, HE WAS GIVEN AN HONORABLE DISCHARGE, ALL PAY, ALL BACK PAY AND BENEFITS.

[RaceBannon]

Sgt Hutchins sentencing still to follow, panel still in deliberations.

[pissant]

Prayers continue....

[RedRover]

Great news!

[mnehrling]

Murtha? Apology?



























...crickets....

[NormsRevenge]

Wow! Honorable? Wow!

Thanks for the news!!!

[1035rep]

Great news!

[jazusamo]

Very good news!

[lilycicero]

He really is “Magic”. That’s great.

[DirtyPigpen]

YEE HAAAW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[lilycicero]

It’s five o’clock, just got paid:
I’ll be off the next two days.
No more workin’ like dogs,
No more leash, no more boss.
I’ve got a weekend of nothin’ to do at all:
Yee Haw!

[ishabibble]

Wonderful news! Keep praying for the others and their families.

[RedRover]

Story in the LA Times: Marine who helped kill Iraqi is freed

CAMP PENDLETON — Cpl. Marshall Magincalda was freed today after a military jury sentenced him to 448 days in prison and lowered his rank to private for his role in a plot to kidnap and execute an Iraqi man last year.

Magincalda had already served that time while waiting for his trial to begin. He is the second Marine freed without receiving additional prison time after being convicted in the case.

Cpl. Trent D. Thomas, who was convicted of conspiracy and kidnapping, was ordered by the jury to be given a bad-conduct discharge but no further jail time after spending 14 months in the brig awaiting trial.

A separate jury was deliberating over Sgt. Lawrence Hutchins, the alleged ringleader, who was convicted Thursday and was expected to be sentenced later today. All three juries have consisted of combat veterans from Iraq.

Magincalda, talking to reporters, said he hoped to reenlist and return to Iraq for a fourth tour of duty. "If my country calls for it, I'd be glad to do that."

Magincalda, 24, of Manteca, Calif., was convicted of conspiracy to commit murder and housebreaking but not premeditated murder. Hutchins, 23, of Plymouth, Mass., was convicted of conspiracy and unpremeditated murder.

The case involved a plot by a Marine squad to kidnap and kill an Iraqi man in April 2006 as a sign to insurgents to stop attacking Marines in the Hamandiya area west of Baghdad. A man was dragged from his bed, marched 1,000 yards and shot 11 times. Marines told their superiors he had been killed in a firefight.

Neither Magincalda nor Hutchins testified at his court-martial but each made an unsworn statement to his jury before it began deliberating which sentence to impose. Both spoke of their religious faith and their pride in the Marine Corps.

"I just like being a Marine," said Magincalda. "I'd like to continue on. This is my job. This is who I am."

Hutchins said that he began dreaming of being a Marine while a young teenager and that his desire hardened after the Sept. 11 attacks.

Magincalda wept and apologized for the killing in the village of Hamandiya and for not following through on his responsibility as a noncommissioned officer to stop junior Marines from being part of a plot to kill an Iraqi.

But Hutchins, showing less emotion, offered no apology. Instead, he spoke of the Marines' frustration at being unable to stop the roadside bombings and sniper attacks. Killing an Iraqi as a warning to insurgents, he said, was "part of our mission" and helped save Marines.

Magincalda said he was grateful to have combat veterans on his jury: "I think they had some true insight into what we're talking about -- what's going on over there." He added that he had no hard feelings over the process and his 14 months behind bars. "It's actually brought me closer to the Marine Corps."

The convictions and sentences will be reviewed by Lt. Gen. James N. Mattis, commanding general of the Marine Forces Central Command.

As the convening authority in the case, he has the power to overturn guilty verdicts and reduce sentences. He also could commute the sentences of four Marines who pleaded guilty to reduced charges in the case. A Navy corpsman also pleaded guilty, and the five received sentences ranging from 10 months to eight years. All eight defendants were initially charged with murder.

Navy corpsman Melson Bacos has served his sentence and, as part of his plea bargain, served as a prosecution witness.

As the Hutchins jury announced its verdict Thursday, Thomas watched from an adjoining room on closed-circuit television. When the jury acquitted Hutchins on a charge of premeditated murder, which would have brought the mandatory life sentence, he sighed with relief.

"I feel good," Thomas said with a smile. "Oh, my God. He beat premeditated."

[Weeedley]

None of these brave warriors should have been brought up on charges, Gawdamm NONE of them! The lawyering and PCing of the military makes me sick to my stomach!!

The officers who were involved in this travesty should be clapped in irons and busted down to private and dishonorably discharged forfeiting pay and benefits.

[lilycicero]

I do believe Mattis is 2nd in command to Jesus.

[Rummyfan]

Someone call Congressman Murtha’s office!

[RaceBannon]

The officers that let them hang, YES

Lt Phan’s thumb drive was intentionally destroyed when he submitted it as evidence, and the USMC refused to re-release a copy of the orders to clear up the case!!

This was a kangaroo court right from the start.

[RaceBannon]

Murtha’s comments were about a pending case, Haditha, this one is Hamdania

Once Hutchin’s sentencing is done, it is over...or so they think!

LOTS of people are furious about this, and we aren’t letting it go!

[RedRover]

Goddamn right.

[PGalt]

GRRREAT news! Thanks for posting.

[Girlene]

WOW!!!!! Honorable Discharge? Back Pay? Benefits? WOW!!!

[Girlene]

More from North County Times No jail for corporal in Hamdania killing

By: TERI FIGUEROA -- staff writer Jury still contemplating sentence for his squad leader

CAMP PENDLETON ---- A Marine corporal guilty of conspiring to kill an Iraqi was sentenced to a reduction in rank and time served this morning, meaning today he will walk out of a Camp Pendleton jail and back into Marine life.

Cpl. Marshall Magincalda, who was in on a plot to kill the man but admitted that he did not actually shoot him, hugged his crying family after his sentence was read.

"I get to go home," said the 24-year-old Magincalda, whose rank will be reduced to private. "I'm still in the Marine Corps. I didn't get discharged."

Magincalda is the second Marine sentenced to time served --- in his case it was 448 days. The squad's leader, Sgt. Lawrence Hutchins, is awaiting sentencing on murder charges. Five others pleaded guilty and received jail sentences.

Although Magincalda could have been sentenced to life in prison for his conviction for conspiracy to commit murder, larceny and housebreaking, prosecutors on Thursday asked the jury to send him to jail for 10 years.

But the jury, made up entirely of veterans of the Iraq war, rejected jail, opting to allow Magincalda to stay in the Marine Corps.

The Manteca native served in Iraq three times, including vicious firefights in Fallujah where he saw his buddies die. On Thursday, Magincalda's psychiatrist testified that Magincalda suffers from severe post-traumatic stress disorder.

Two weeks ago, a jury also rejected jail time for one of Magincalda's accused squad mates, even though that man had faced up to life in prison for his conviction for kidnapping and conspiracy.

A jury is still deciding on a sentence for Hutchins, who was convicted Thursday of murder and other charges in the same incident. Prosecutors in that case want the squad leader to go to military prison for 30 years. He is the first Marine convicted of murder by a military jury for killing an Iraqi since the start of the war.

Hutchins' jury began deliberating his fate this morning.

In a courtroom two buildings down, as he listened to his own sentence, Magincalda said his thoughts were with Hutchins.

"My mind was on other matters," Magincalda said. "I have a buddy who's going through dire straits right now."

Magincalda's attorney refused to allow his client to answer a handful of particular media questions, including what Magincalda might have done differently on April 26, 2006, the night he and his squad mates yanked the neighbor of a highly suspected Iraqi insurgent out of bed and shot him to death in the rural village of Hamdania.

According to testimony, the crew did it to send a message to those in the area that insurgency would not be tolerated.

Civilian attorney Joseph Low also refused to let Magincalda say whether he believed what the eight troops did that night saved lives, whether the message got through and whether it reduced the number of attacks on U.S. troops in the Hamdania area.

But Magincalda did say why he refused to take a plea deal, even though five of his squad mates struck deals that gave them reduced sentences in exchange for testifying against the other accused in the case.

"I was not going to save myself to maybe, possibly bury another Marine," Magincalda said, adding that he does not fault the men who took deals and that he remains friends with them.

Two months after the slaying of the man, Hashim Ibrahim Awad, the Marine Corps charged the Camp Pendleton-based squad of seven Marines and one Navy corpsman with murder and a host of other charges.

The charges in the Hamdania case came three months after a Time magazine story on the deaths of 24 civilians by a different squad of Marines in Haditha sparked an internal military inquiry and an international furor. That group of men is also stationed at Camp Pendleton. Court proceedings are pending in those cases.

The battalion commander overseeing the squad in the Hamdania case has testified that complaints from the family of the slain Awad, coupled with the Haditha inquiry, led him to investigate Awad's slaying.

Magincalda spent the last 15 months in the brig. He was supposed to get out of the Marine Corps last fall, but his active duty tour was extended by the military while he fought the criminal charges. He has another five months left in the Marine Corps.

He said he wants to re-enlist and would even go back to Iraq if asked.

"I did my time (in the brig)," Magincalda said. "If the Marine Corps is willing to keep me, I am willing to stay on."

[smoothsailing]

That is wonderful news on a Friday evening, or any other day!

Thanks Race, for letting us know.

[napscoordinator]

Magincalda, 24, of Manteca, Calif., was convicted of conspiracy to commit murder and housebreaking but not premeditated murder.

He wants to come back in the military. Is this possible considering his conviction or was the conviction overturned too????

[freema]

You’re getting the good news first.

[RedRover]

My understanding is that he is honorably discharged and has no choice but to leave the Corps.

I suppose he could find a way to get back in but I understand that’s difficult under normal circumstances.

[2111USMC]

I’m confused about that too.

Headline says honorable. 2nd article says he is still in.

[kellynla]

“freed after being convicted?”

Excellent news but “freed after being convicted???”

Semper Fi,
Kelly