OT Court-Martial

This would seem to be a juristictional issue. Once a person is discharged from service, I would think that courts martial would no longer have juristiction.

Just a rough guess though.

Jim

================================================== please reply to: JRR(zero) at yktvmv (dot) vnet (dot) ibm (dot) com ==================================================

Just a Sea Lawyer here. It all depends. After a normal enlistment you are nor fully discharged but go into the inactive reserves to a total of 6 years. If you retire, you are in the inactive reserves until your 30th aniversery. During that period of time they can come after you if the want to. Again, I am just an old Sea Lawyer.

Howard

Yes, but by a civilian court. IRRC...its a real can of worms. The Mai Li cluster f*ck was an example..

YMMV

Gunner "A vote for Kerry is a de facto vote for bin Laden." Strider

I think that they could be tried by a civilian court, UNLESS they had already been tried. This is why the prison guards are being court martialed, to protect them (by double jehprody clause) from ever being tried by a civilian court.

They're being court-martialed because no US court has juristiction. The offenses happened in a foreign country, under US martial law.

Jim

================================================== please reply to: JRR(zero) at yktvmv (dot) vnet (dot) ibm (dot) com ==================================================

Yes, but double jeopardy only applies when our government wants it to. You do recall the trials of the cops who beat poor Rodney King, don't you?

If Scott Peterson gets off, which he very well may as there seems to be no hard evidence against him, anyone want to bet that the Feds won't immediately find some charges to try him on? Or that, if they do, they'll find some similar charges for which the statutes of limitations have not yet expired to try OJ on? Most likely scenario to me is: Scott get off on state trial, public outrage, tried and found guilty by Feds, no action of course against OJ. But I'm just a bit of a cynic, I guess.

John Martin

This scenario in Iraq should bring some interesting situations in legal law.I was wondering how the civilian contractors, acting as guards,will be treated in the maltreatment of prisoners.Has the US been in this type of problem before?

Yes, they were charged with denial of civil rights by the feds, and assault and battery by California. What's the problem? Do you believe that someone who shoots a clerk while holding up a store should only be charged with armed robbery and not murder?

On what grounds? Civil rights? Won't fly. He's not an LEO.

And, and dead wrong to boot.

||>If Scott Peterson gets off, which he very well may as there seems to be no hard ||>evidence against him, anyone want to bet that the Feds won't immediately find ||>some charges to try him on? || ||On what grounds? Civil rights? Won't fly. He's not an LEO.

LEO? That's a TLA for what? Texas Parts Guy

Sorry, Duck, but you don't make any sense that I can see.

In your example, you try the person on charges of armed robbery and murder. You don't try him first on armed robbery, then if he gets off on murder, then if he gets off again on something else. Which is exactly what was done in the Rodney King case. The cops were found not guilty by the Simi Valley jury, but were then tried in Federal courts on civil rights charges because so many people were upset at the first verdict. Think that's fair?

That Scott Peterson is not a LEO has nothing to do with whether he can be charged with civil rights violations. He can be. Whether he will be will depend on the verdict in this trial.

Dead wrong? Got some sort of crystal ball, do you?

John Martin

Law enforcement officer. Duck Dog is making his point that only a law enforcement officer can be charged with violating someone's civil rights.

John Martin

But an Iraqi court will have jurisdiction at some time, but the soldiers & politicians will be protected.

Back at ya, dude ;-)

As a matter of fact, yes. Same way as I applaud the efforts of the feds to go after the killers of the civil rights workers in Mississippi, who were freed only by racist jurors in their state trial.

I'll concede that's possible, but I can't think of any real world cases that back that up.

It'll never happen. There's nothing political about it. OJ would be charged sooner, and that never happened, right?

No, but I'd bet on it. See ya back here in a year or so ;-)

I think it highly unlikely that the Feds would try him. There is nothing of federal interest here and nothing to suggest the state court won't be fair.

The classic case of the federal re-trial was the one of the Klansmen who murdered the civil rights workers back in the '60s. They were acquitted of murder in the state court by a highly biased jury so the Feds charged, convicted and sent them up for life for violating the victims' civil right to life by killing them.

In the case of OJ, there was no federal case, and won't be. The state court acquitted because the evidence just wasn't there (and also because the Los Angeles Police screwed the case up beyond all recognition, but that's another story...). So, a wrongful death suit was brought in the state civil courts, where the rules of evidence are less stringent, and OJ got picked cleaner than a peanut sack in a monkey cage.

With regard to re-calling a former military person back to active duty to face a court martial, it is iffy. In the case of an enlisted man, he can be recalled during any reserve obligation that follows his release from active duty. But, in the case of an officer, he may be recalled at any time (once an officer, always an officer...). And, if the charges involve a violation of civilian law, the civil courts may have jurisdiction (or at least will share jurisdiction with the military courts). If it is in the United States, they will. If it is in a foreign country, it depends on the circumstances under which he is in that country (treaties, status of forces agreements, etc.).

Sometimes, however, there is no law or no one has jurisdiction. This seems to be the case of the civilian contractors in Iraq. They are not subject to military law. There are no oddball US laws to cover most of their activities (It is, for example, a federal offense to travel to a foreign country for the purpose of having sex with a child). And there is no competent Iraqi authority to have jurisdiction.

This is similar to the situation of a guy who, quite literally, got away with murder some years back (laws have since been enacted to fix this one...). While standing on United States soil, he shot across the border and killed a guy in Mexico. California law didn't apply because the victim was not in California. The way Federal law was then written, it would have covered the case of someone shot across a state line, but not an interntional border. And, the way Mexican law was written, the Mexican courts had no jurisdiction because the guy wasn't physically in Mexico when he committed the murder.

Just because "there oughtta be a law" doesn't necessarily mean there is.

Jerry

My father was court martialled several years after leaving the Air Force, so I'd say, yes.

Al Moore

BTW: His "crime" was that (while in service, during WWII) he had disagreed with the statement: "Should he come to power in Jugoslavia, Tito will be a puppet of Stalin." Failure to agree was taken as evidence of "disloyalty." During the McCarthy era, this was serious. He was found not guilty, because by the time of his court martial, it was obvious that Tito was not a puppet of Stalin, but that didn't keep him from being blacklisted. He never again worked for anyone but himself.

AM

Can't think of any real world cases? Really? Forget your previous sentence already?

John Martin

Just my opinion, but Federal interest - or the lack of it - has little or nothing to do with whether they will try him again (assuming he gets off on this trial). (Scott Peterson, just to keep the record straight). The determining factor will be whether they like the verdict or not.

Or, maybe even whether they like the punishment. As in the case of Terry Nichols. Who was of course convicted in his state trial.

No Federal case against OJ? Wasn't there every bit as much a case as there was against the Klansmen, or against the Rodney King cops? As far as the evidence goes, you must have been watching and reading about a different trial than I was. Because at the end of that trial, there were in my mind only two possible conclusions: either OJ was unquestionably guilty, or there was a conspiracy involving at least three or four cops and technicians to plant evidence. That the LA police made mistakes I'll admit. Happens all the time, in every case. Given enough lawyers and enough money, you can cast doubt on one plus one equals two. As far as OJ being picked clean, he seems to still be walking around the golf course - and not the one at Club Fed. And to have his pension, and quite a few other assets.

Here's a simple question for you - more evidence against OJ or against Scott Peterson?

John Martin

I'm thinking that they were all LEO's, but you're right, they weren't. Mea Culpa.

Actually, they got sentences ranging up to 8 years, and all have been free for a while.

He still got to keep his NFL pension.