I can tell you from the prospective of a retired Army Officer who issued various punishments during my career that the judge risks having this sentence overturned as excessive punishment. This is a “crime” that could have been addressed with a reprimand, official or unofficial or something along those lines. Jail time for taking this photo is absurd and I hope President Trump will now move forward on a pardon full and complete. I would have called him in my office and read him the riot act or even given him all copied of a letter of reprimand which he could have done with as he pleased.
“This is a “crime” that could have been addressed with a reprimand, official or unofficial or something along those lines. Jail time for taking this photo is absurd”
You’re right. Tasteless, but any confinement is unwarranted. He has already been unjustly punished.
I agree with you. This charge was thrown in just in case the other charges ran into trouble. Of course, they did, because the prosecution had gone rogue.
I’m personally guilty of this charge, but I’m pretty sure that I have the only copy of the photo. It wasn’t a full body, just a skull that one of my platoon leaders had left as a trail marker so that I knew which fork to take. I took a number of photos of dead soldiers for intel purposes and I knew that posing with dead enemy was verboten.
Posing with the entire platoon was a dumb ass move, not professional, but it deserved a good ass chewing.
Not to mention, he was the only one charged when it was a group photo.
I can tell you from the prospective of a retired Army Officer who issued various punishments during my career that the judge risks having this sentence overturned as excessive punishment. This is a “crime” that could have been addressed with a reprimand, official or unofficial or something along those lines. Jail time for taking this photo is absurd and I hope President Trump will now move forward on a pardon full and complete. I would have called him in my office and read him the riot act or even given him all copied of a letter of reprimand which he could have done with as he pleased.
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Yeah but you’re showing good judgement and are therefore clearly not one of the “perfumed princes”. I certainly hope this travesty is overturned and true military justice prevails.
Agreed. Article 15 with Letter of Reprimand would have been appropriate.
So true. The punishment for taking a pic with a corpse should be the superior officer walking over and saying “cut it out”