GI charged with attempted murder unfit to stand trial

[unhappycamper]

GI charged with attempted murder unfit to stand trial
By Mark St.Clair, Stars and Stripes
European edition, Tuesday, February 24, 2009

BAMBERG, Germany — A 527th Military Police Company specialist was found mentally unfit to stand trial last week, ending his court-martial almost before it began.

Originally charged with the Dec. 6, 2007, attempted murder of a female soldier near Ansbach by allegedly bashing her head with a helmet, Spc. David T. Chase’s case grew much stranger after he began pretrial confinement in Mannheim.

During the first three months of 2008, Chase was also charged with willfully disobeying a noncommissioned officer and 14 specifications of assaulting his guards with everything from his fists and restraints to spittle, toilet paper, feces and semen.

At the court-martial on Wednesday, Chase was disheveled, unkempt, shackled and shuffling through the corridors of Bamberg’s law center under triple guard, many of whom were angered by the competency ruling given by the presiding military judge, Col. Jeffrey R. Nance.

The postponement of Chase’s case — scheduled to run three days — until he receives mental health care to see if he’s competent to stand trial in the future was the only option Nance had, according to lead defense counsel David Court.


Rest of article at: http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=60929