The problem with your post is the one sidedness. I saw no mention of prosecutorial misconduct. Where does that factor in?
“I saw no mention of prosecutorial misconduct.”
Unless the prosecutors outrightly violated an article of the UCMJ that was pertinant to the offence and article being exercised, it has nothing to do with the violation. A court martial is not like a trial that can be thrown out for a generic mistake.
A Working Group was established in 1978 to evaluate and adapt the Federal Rules for use in military courts-martial. The Working Group’s philosophy was to adopt each Federal Rule verbatim, making only minor wording changes to incorporate military terms and procedure or in cases where military necessity required deviating from the Federal Rules.
In this case, whereas it is not an unlawful act to take pictures of the ISIS fighters and display a knife to be used to possibly simulate the kill, it deviates from Article 133 and Article 134 which can destroy military discipline and trust to harm interservice and country needs.
“The problem with your post is the one sidedness.”
If I read this comment right the difference between your theory on court-martial and mine is that I’m not sure you understand the differences. If this case had been a civil trial, it would have been handled differently. I have been involved with C-M’s for half my life before I was forced to retire. They are very dry and single topic directed. And depending on what the prosecutors are going after, will even determine if there is even a plea bargain possibility at all.
Everything in a court-martial is baby steps. In this case, there is no word that I’ve found about the three superiors to Chief Gallagher that were also going to be brought to court-martial. It is possible they were offered Article 15’s, or even counseling letters at different levels.
It should also be noted that all the other charges have been dropped except those under the articles of 133 and 134. And he admitted he was wrong on those and an embarrassment.
How do you think I should feel for a member that is found guilty and demoted for his unprofessional actions that, in my mind, are going to cause problems down the road? In the business, we have enough trouble trying to contain the enemy, let alone our allies and/or ourselves. And he is still guilty by court-martial of the offense he was found so. He was just given back his rank. And I think Trump is wrong for his trying to keep him in a career field he has done so much damage to in this instance. And we don’t know if this is the only time, either. He should be removed from the career field for lack of performance in this area and the “black eye” he gave the SEAL’s in the eyes of the world.....to include those that depend upon his judgement.
rwood