Marine Corps probe video showing troops "urinating on dead Taliban"

[The Bread Guy]

Bump with an update....

A staff noncommissioned officer will be court-martialed Wednesday (19 Dec 12) at Camp Lejeune, N.C., on charges related to an infamous 2011 incident in Afghanistan in which Marines with a scout-sniper unit videotaped themselves urinating on the bodies of dead Taliban fighters, the Marine Corps announced Friday.

Staff Sgt. Joseph W. Chamblin, assigned to 3rd Battalion, 2nd Marines, will be tried at a special court-martial on two counts of violating Article 92 and five counts under Article 134, said Col. Sean Gibson, a spokesman at Marine Corps Combat Development Command in Quantico, Va.

Chamblin is accused of failing to properly supervise junior Marines, failing to require they wear their proper personal protective equipment, failing to report the misconduct of junior Marines, failing to report the negligent discharge of a grenade launcher and failing to stop the indiscriminate firing of weapons, officials said in a statement ....

Marine Corps Times, 14 Dec 12

 

[The Bread Guy]

A staff noncommissioned officer at Camp Lejeune, N.C., was busted to sergeant and ordered to forfeit $500 after he plead guilty to two charges tied to the 2011 incident where a scout-sniper unit videotaped themselves urinating on the bodies of dead Taliban fighters, the Marine Corps announced Thursday.

Staff Sgt. Joseph W. Chamblin, a scout-sniper and infantry unit leader assigned to 3rd Battalion, 2nd Marines, pleaded guilty Wednesday to dereliction of duty for failing to properly supervise junior Marines and wrongfully posing for photographs with human casualties and to wrongfully urinating on the body of a deceased enemy combatant, said Col. Sean Gibson, a Marine Corps Combat Development Command spokesman in Quantico, Va.

Under a pretrial agreement signed off by MCCDC’s commander, Lt. Gen. Richard Mills, the maximum sentence Chamblin could get is reduction to E-5 sergeant and forfeitures of $500 for one month.

That is far less punishment than the sentence the military judge, Col. Bill Riggs, issued at the special court-martial on Wednesday: Thirty days in confinement, 60 days of restriction, $500 in monthly forfeitures for six months, a $2,000 fine and reduction to E-3 lance corporal. Under military law, in cases with plea deals, the defendant gets the lesser of the punishment ....

Marine Corps Times, 20 Dec 12

 

[The Bread Guy]

A military judge will hear arguments Friday on a motion to depose the Marine Corps commandant and two other top generals in what has become one of the most high-profile cases involving wrongdoing by U.S. troops in Afghanistan.

The motion was filed by attorney Guy Womack, who represents Sgt. Robert Richards, one of four Marine scout snipers filmed two years ago urinating on dead Taliban fighters. Womack said he believes the commandant, Gen. Jim Amos, exerted unlawful command influence to prejudice Marines against his client even before formal charges were brought. He wants a chance to question Amos under oath, along with Lt. Gen. Thomas Waldhauser, who serves as the senior military adviser to Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, and Lt. Gen. Richard Mills, who heads Marine Corps Combat Development Command, which has overseen the prosecution of cases related to the incident.

Richards faces court-martial in August on several charges related to the video, which ignited an international controversy when it appeared on YouTube in January 2012. At least six other Marines, all members of 3rd Battalion, 2nd Marines, at Camp Lejeune, N.C., have been disciplined for their roles in the incident. Capt. James Clement, then executive officer for the battalion’s Kilo Company, also awaits trial ....

Marine Corps Times, 20 Jun 13

 

[FJAG]

The Navy-Marine Corps Court of Appeals has overturned the conviction of Staff Sergeant Chamblin, previously convicted of urinating on a dead Taliban on the basis of  apparent unlawful command influence.

For an article on the decision, see here:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/checkpoint/wp/2017/11/09/marine-who-urinated-on-dead-taliban-has-conviction-thrown-out-due-to-generals-meddling/?hpid=hp_hp-cards_hp-card-world%3Ahomepage%2Fcard&utm_term=.6e094a725054

The actual decision can be found here:

http://www.jag.navy.mil/courts/opinion_archive.htm Click download for US v Chamblin.

:remembrance:

 

[Navy_Pete]

Thanks FJAG, that's an interesting read.

In a Canadian context, would the same kind of thing apply, for instance if the CDS or MND made a number of public statements when an incident came to light?  Not sure how the rules compare between our two systems.

Maybe not the best example, as this is pretty extreme in both the offense and the command interference, but wondering more at a generic level.

 

[FJAG]

Thanks FJAG, that's an interesting read.

In a Canadian context, would the same kind of thing apply, for instance if the CDS or MND made a number of public statements when an incident came to light?  Not sure how the rules compare between our two systems.

Maybe not the best example, as this is pretty extreme in both the offense and the command interference, but wondering more at a generic level.

I don't think so. If you remember back to the Somalia mission, there were issues respecting the Minister at the time not receiving the information about the incident that she felt she was entitled to because the department was trying to keep her insulated from the case because at the time she had a quasi-judicial role that she might be called on to exercise. Similarly, we had at the time the situation where, like in the US, the convening authority for courts martial was a specified person in the chain of command (such as a brigade commander).

Even before Somalia--especially immediately after the Charter of Rights was created--we had several court cases that dealt with the independence of both the military prosecutors and the military judges. As those cases were decided we put band-aid solutions in place to fix things.

In the aftermath of Somalia, we had a wholesale review of the system from the bottom up--both internally by JAG and by former Supreme Court Justice Dickson. The result was a major restructuring of the system which has separated judges, prosecutors and defence counsel from the chain of command and each other. The CMJ, DMP and DDCS have no more connection to the military chain of command then civilian judges, prosecutors or defence counsel have to the federal or provincial governments in the course of their duties. While charges are laid by the chain of command or the CFNIS, the entire charge preferral, convening and related administrative processes is outside of their hands.

IMHO, the system is pretty much free from any of the complications that came up in the Chamblin case, however, it's an age-old tactic that when the facts are against your client then defence counsel will attack the fairness of the system, so I expect to see more challenges in court from time to time and, of course, the usual intemperate comments from so-called "legal experts" in the media.

Situations such as the CDS's comments after the Halifax Proud Boys incident are not helpful at all. While I doubt that his comments would have had any impact if charges had been laid, they certainly do raise a question about whether junior commanders within the CoC were making independent decisions as to administrative actions. The bar for inappropriate command influence as to administrative actions however is very low as administrative actions are a CoC function and not a judicial one.

:remembrance: