Charges dropped

In developments that would be certain to discomfit a certain porcine, unindicted co-conspirator and ex-Marine had he a shred of integrity left, LGEN James Mattis, CG 1 MEF, has dropped the charges against one of the Marines involved in the Haditha “massacre”:

A general dropped all charges Thursday against a Marine who had been accused of killing three Iraqi brothers in response to a roadside bomb attack in Haditha in 2005.

“The evidence does not support a referral to a court-martial,” Lt. Gen. James Mattis wrote in his written decision.

Lance Cpl. Justin L. Sharratt, 22, had been charged with the murder in the deaths of three of those killed after the bomb attack Nov. 19, 2005.

The decision to drop the charges followed an earlier recommendation from a hearing officer who listened to evidence in the case. Under military law, a commanding general has total jurisdiction over a case.

In his recommendation, Lt. Col. Paul Ware said murder charges brought against Sharratt were based on unreliable witness accounts, poor forensic evidence and questionable legal theories.

“The government version is unsupported by independent evidence,” Ware wrote in an 18-page report. “To believe the government version of facts is to disregard clear and convincing evidence to the contrary.”

In our adversarial system of justice, it is not the prosecutor’s job to establish whether a crime has been committed or not. That is the job of criminal investigator. The prosecution’s job is to prove that a crime has been committed and punish those they accuse. They failed in this case, because the review officer determined that their case was not supported by the evidence in hand even before the defense got a chance to contest the charges.

Dealing with facts, in other words. Unlike those supporters of the Beauchamp narrative whom Jeff Goldstein so ably parodies here:

Personally, I think they should have gassed him.

Because you have to admit, even if it didn

August 9th, 2007 | Category: Military