Chandler's Watch

Jose Nazario speaks!

Written by Tommy Chandler

Tuesday, 19 August 2008

Jose Nazario talks to abc12!

The trial starts today for jusry selection. We wish our brothers well.

Here is todays article of the trial from the Wall Street Journal :

This article was forwarded over by one of the attorneys: May 23, 2008

MARINE FACES TRIAL BY CIVILIANS
Man Who Left Service Will Go to Court on Charges in Iraq Case
By Jason W. Armstrong
Daily Journal Staff Writer
This article appears on Page 1

      RIVERSIDE - Jose Luis Nazario Jr. finished his military career as a Marine sergeant three years ago after serving in Iraq. While there, he said, he regularly fired at insurgents and got shot at while navigating a maze of crooked streets and crumbling, vacant homes.
      But Nazario is now fighting another war - this one an apparently unprecedented case filed against him by federal prosecutors.
      They've charged him with committing voluntary manslaughter by shooting and killing two unarmed insurgents during a fierce battle to take control of Fallujah, Iraq in 2004.
      Nazario, who also is a former Riverside police officer, could be the first former serviceman nationwide to be tried outside of the military justice system under the Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act, or MEJA. The 2000 law places federal jurisdiction over civilians who commit crimes while accompanying troops abroad and former military members whose crimes are discovered after they leave the service.
      Nazario, 28, has pleaded not guilty. He faces a maximum of 20 years in federal prison if convicted on the two manslaughter counts. His trial is scheduled to start July 8 before U.S. District Judge Stephen Larson in Riverside.
      His lawyer, who unsuccessfully argued that the action didn't belong in the federal court, said he believes the case is treading on uncharted legal ground.
      "This is the first case of its kind, relating to a combat situation" involving a former member of the Armed Forces, Kevin B. McDermott, Nazario's lead trial attorney, said.
      Unknowns in the case, he said, include civilian jurors' reactions to and interpretations of evidence and testimony dealing with brutal combat scenarios.
      "I have visions of 12 soccer moms sitting there," McDermott, a Tustin sole practitioner, said. "You wonder how jurors will decipher rules of engagement and positive identification and whether Marines had cause to do anything."
      Assistant U.S. Attorney Jerry Behnke, a Riverside-based prosecutor helping try the case, declined to comment. In the complaint, prosecutors said they had "probable cause" to believe that Nazario "in the heat of passion caused by adequate provocation did commit voluntary manslaughter by unlawfully and intentionally killing two unarmed male human beings, without malice." U.S. v. Nazario, EDCR07-127 SGL (C.D. Cal., filed Sept. 4, 2007).
      The killings, prosecutors said in documents filed in the case, were illegal because they "violated clearly established law of war."
      Prosecutors also argued that Nazario went against his training "regarding proper treatment of detainees."
      "All Marines, including defendant, were repeatedly taught that they shall do no harm to detainees and that they have an affirmative duty to protect detainees," prosecutors said in their briefs.
      The case against Nazario centers on his actions during Operation Phantom Fury on Nov. 9, 2004 - the first day of the Marines' bitter two-week fight with insurgents to wrest control of Fallujah, one of Anbar province's largest cities.
      About 3,000 suspected insurgents were killed, and roughly 100 Marines died and 1,000 were wounded, military officials said.

During the fight, Nazario's squad was taking gunfire from a house, according to an affidavit in support of the complaint written by Mark O. Fox, a special agent with the Naval Criminal Investigative Service.
      The Marines searched the home after the shooting stopped, found AK-47 rifles and ammunition and detained four men, Fox said in the affidavit.
      According to the affidavit, a superior asked Nazario over a radio if the Iraqis were "dead yet."
      "Nazario said he was told to 'Make it happen,'" Fox wrote in the affidavit.
      Nazario killed two of the men and ordered two other Marines in his unit to kill the other two, according to prosecutors. Behnke declined to say why Nazario was charged with involvement in only two of the deaths.
      McDermott said the incident prosecutors pinned on his client "never happened."
      "It didn't occur at all. Period," McDermott said.
      The two Marines Nazario allegedly told to kill the other two insurgents have also been charged in the alleged incident. Military prosecutors have charged sergeants Ryan Weemer and Jermaine Nelson with murder and dereliction of duty. Their courts-martial proceedings are pending at Camp Pendleton in San Diego County.
      According to McDermott, Weemer fingered Nazario during a polygraph test that triggered an initial investigation by the Naval Criminal Investigative Service. Behnke declined to comment.
      It was unclear Thursday whether Weemer or Nelson would testify in Nazario's trial. According to Nelson's lawyer, Nelson defied a court order to testify before a grand jury in connection with the case this week and a judge ordered him taken into custody as a result. His lawyer, Joseph H. Low IV of Long Beach, said Nelson opted to go to prison rather testify agaisnt Nazario. (Related story on Page 2.)
      "This is a witness the prosecution wants to use to bury Sgt. Nazario because Sgt. Nazario won't take a deal," Low said Thursday.
      Nazario had no reserve commitment after his 2005 honorable discharge, and military officials said his case fell outside of their jurisdiction. They turned to federal prosecutors, who charged him under MEJA.
      Congress enacted the law eight years ago after a series of court cases that said civilians accompanying the armed forces could not be tried in military courts-martial.
      The law also was written to give government jurisdiction over armed forces members who committed on-duty crimes while under the Uniform Code of Military Justice but whose alleged acts were discovered after they "separated or retired" from the service.
      It applies to those whose crime outside the country could have netted them a year or more in prison if committed in the U.S.
      Just a handful of people have been charged under the statute.
      While Nazario's case is expected to be the first to reach trial under MEJA, one other former service member, former Army PFC Steven Green of Kentucky, also has been charged under the law.
      Green is accused of participating in the rape and murder of a 14-year-old Iraqi girl in March 2006 and the murder of her parents and sister. Several co-defendants pleaded guilty or were found guilty of charges involving the incident in courts-martial proceedings.
      Green is scheduled to go to trial in April 2009 in federal court in Paducah, Ky. He faces the death penalty.
      McDermott and other lawyers helping represent Nazario filed a motion asking Larson to toss the manslaughter charges in March, arguing the federal court lacked jurisdiction to hear the case.
      Serving as co-counsel for the former Marine are San Diego sole practitioner Douglas L. Applegate, Ledger & Associates name partner Emery Ledger and attorneys Pepper Hamilton in Newport Beach.
      In their motion, the defense lawyers said the case would require the jury to "examine military decisions" outside of the court's "judicially manageable standards."
      "The court ... cannot reasonably or appropriately determine the propriety of Sgt. Nazario's actions on the field of battle without an impermissible intrusion into the military powers," the motion said.
      Larson agreed with prosecutors' opposition to the request. The judge ruled April 28 that Nazario had failed to "demonstrate that adjudication of this case would intrude on any policy choices or value judgments of the politically accountable branches."
      "The express language of [MEJA] provides federal courts with jurisdiction to hear criminal cases, where, as here, the alleged crime was committed prior to discharge from the Armed Services," Larson wrote.
      The case comes amid several high profile military prosecutions alleging abuse or killings of Iraqi civilians and detainees by troops. Those cases include the alleged Marine killing of 24 people in Haditha, Iraq in 2005. Prosecutors contend the troops killed the Iraqis as revenge for a roadside bomb that killed a Marine and injured two others.
      Charges against several Marines accused in the incident are pending.
      When federal prosecutors charged him, Nazario was a two-year officer with the Riverside Police Department and was approaching the end of his probationary period. The department fired him when he was charged.
      He and his wife and daughter have since moved to New York, where he is originally from.
      Nazario said the case has had a "devastating" effect on his life. He said he is out of work because employers refuse to hire him when they learn that he has charges pending.
      His lawyers are representing him pro bono.
      "There are no words for what I am going through," Nazario said.

Comments

Add New

RSS

Write comment

Name:

Email:

Website:

Title:

UBBCode: