Hamdaniya Marine’s murder conviction overturned (nobody's guilty of killing an Iraqi man)

[unhappycamper]

Pvt. Lawrence G. Hutchins III, a former sergeant now serving an 11-year sentence in the military prison at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., will be released from confinement if the Navy does not appeal the court’s ruling.


Hamdaniya Marine’s murder conviction overturned
Posted : Friday Apr 23, 2010 11:01:47 EDT

A military appeals court has thrown out the 2007 conviction of a Marine infantry squad leader accused of murdering an innocent man in the Iraqi town of Hamdaniya.

Pvt. Lawrence G. Hutchins III, a former sergeant now serving an 11-year sentence in the military prison at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., will be released from confinement if the Navy does not appeal the court’s Thursday ruling, his attorney, Capt. Babu Kaza, told Marine Corps Times. However, Hutchins also could face a new set of charges if the Marine Corps wants to readdress his case.

“He was just in shock. He said this is the first good thing that’s happened in this case,” Kaza said shortly after informing Hutchins of the court’s decision. “We still have a long road ahead of us.”

Citing errors in the reassignment of a defense attorney in the case, the Navy-Marine Corps Court of Criminal Appeals in Washington voted 8-1 to “set aside” Hutchins’ conviction and the prison sentence. The lone dissenter disagreed with erasing the conviction and instead advocated for a new hearing.

Hutchins was accused of devising a plot to kill Saleh Gowad, who Marines suspected of planting roadside bombs in and around Hamdaniya, and then leading his squad to Gowad’s house in the early hours of April 26, 2006. When they arrived and Gowad wasn’t there, prosecutors alleged, four members of the squad snatched another man instead, bound him with duct tape and dragged him to a nearby road where they executed him beside a freshly-dug hole.

[Richard Steele]

1. K&R without comment.