This would not have been needed if they were tried in Iraq. The military saved its own.
Well, let’s start with this: I am very strongly against the death penalty, in any and all circumstances, across the board and around the world. I do not believe that Saddam Hussein, who was obviously not an American soldier and whose record of murder and assorted other brutal mayhem outstrips those of the soldiers in this case, should have been executed. I don’t believe that - oh, I dunno - Ted Bundy, a freakish remorseless man who murdered for pleasure, should have been executed. So, for obvious reasons, you’re not going to convince me anytime soon that Sgt. Cortez ought to be executed.
Second, yeah, Cortez got a sweetheart deal. He may very well spend the rest of his life in prison anyway, but if he finds himself usefully rehabilitated and gets released in thirty years, I will not regard that as a miscarriage of justice. In either case, he certainly got a lighter deal than he deserved. But you seem to be considering his case in a vacuum, pretending that the only conceivable reason that someone might get a lighter deal is some sort of conspiracy.
It’s just not that simple. Look, you have five guys, who collectively perpetrated a horrible act. Perhaps you have evidence enough to prove all five guilty of something, but not enough to nail any of them on the most extreme charges. Now, one of these five guys - in the present case, the role will be played by Private Steven D. Green, who appears to have been the ringleader and the actual shooter - is at least one degree more depraved than the others. You really want to nail Private Green to the wall; you don’t want him slipping away on a stupid technicality. But you’re not confident that the evidence you have is enough. So you go to one of the other five, the one that seems to have been the least egregious in his wrongdoing. And you cut him a deal. He gives you the evidence you need to nail Private Green good and plenty, and in return you give him the possibility - just the possibility, not even the certainty - that he might get to eat at Denny’s again before he dies. Everyone goes to jail. One guy gets slightly less punishment than he’d have gotten without the deal; one guy gets considerably more. It’s not ideal in some respects, but if you need the evidence of Sgt. Cortez’s testimony to get your conviction of Private Green, you hold your nose and you get that testimony. No conspiracy required.
You seem to feel like we should have turned these five men over to the Iraqis so that they would be executed without regard to the evidence available. If this is true, than you are interested in many things, but justice is not among them.
Again, the Iraqi government might have been all too happy to allow the U.S. courts to try them. Defense attorneys generally aren’t willing to suffer kidnapping, torture, and beheading for court appointments.
Exactly the point I was trying to make. Not every plea offer is made out of sympathy or nefarious intent.
Yes, I understand that has happened in countries where the US has military bases, and where the US really is at peace, such as Germany, Japan and South Korea.
But is there a status of forces agreement between the US and Iraq? And if there is, what stopped the US handing this soldier over the the Iraqi court system?
Well, I’m being a bit unfair there. There isn’t really an effective justice system in Iraq, because the US tore down the old one (that existed under Saddam Hussein), and hasn’t left the ountry with the resources to set up a new one. So the Iraqi courts can manage to run a trial for Saddam Hussein, but can’t deal with routine murders like this one. The US goes into Iraq to make it democratic – but it’s not democratic yet, and it doesn’t really look like it’s on the road there either.
So perhaps the outcome of this trial is the best we can expect, especially if it leads to the convictions of others involved in thisd crime. However, it doesn’t really look good to the outside world – partly because it asserts US superiority and Iraqi humiliation, and partly because it symbolises the failure of the US to acco,plish any of its war aims apart from the demise of Saddam Hussein.
Which, again, is an excellent reason not to allow and US soldier to be tried by an Iraqi court. The chances of the court being prejudicial are just too high.
Does it vary by country?
Then why do you assert that it doesn’t happen?
The word Iraq appears nowhere in that sentence.
As for Iraq, the legitimate Iraqi government has titular control, and can throw the United States out of the country at their leisure. Instead they have requested that we stay. Yeah, I know, puppet government, blah, blah, blah. The fact is that we are there by request of the legitimate government of Iraq at this point. Make of that what you will.
It’s unclear as to whether the US has a SOFA with Iraq. I’ve read assertions that it was derailed by the Iraqis, I’ve read that the US is using the language of the UN resolution to go without one. I don’t know. What I do know is that this guy got a stern sentence AND has to give up the goods on his accomplices. That is not at all what I would call a miscarriage of justice. My Lai was a miscarriage of justice. This appears to be anything but.
Yes. There is a SOFA negotiated with every country in which we have a military presence. Other countries that deploy people abroad negotiate their own SOFAs with the countries that they deploy people to. This is a standard way of doing business, worldwide.
I agree, but that’s a problem every prosecutor has to face when he offers a deal to a criminal in return for testimony against other criminals. It may be a necessary evil from your pespective as a prosecutor, but all the letters to the editor in the local paper are from people who don’t care about the sublteties of evidence. They’re screaming bloody murder about how you let a guy who should have gotten the needle off the hook.
POST 1
POST 64
POST 77
POST 95
POST 101
I think we get it.
Isn’t this slightly contradictory?
Strunk, thank you for reminding me why we have a constitution and Bill of Rights that, among other things, guarantees us the right to a fair trial. Because with walking, talking, knee-jerk scumfucks like you around, folks would probably just as soon hang as get even a good look at an attorney.
Just when I feel down about the system, people like you, who are the equivalent of the zealots who would freely hand out criminal penalties that maim and kill in the name of justice, pop up and make things seem a little bit brighter. Thanks, sunshine.
I don’t know if this has been addressed- but what if they had been tried in Iraq?
I won’t take people not standing for this sitting down!
Whether it is valid to consider justice achieved through the use of retribution is certainly an interesting topic for debate, but let’s beg the question as having been decided in the affirmative.
Making someone live for an indeterminate time in prison, with all of its attendant horrors and unpleasantnesses, including the knowledge that he will never breathe free air again, strikes me as succeeding better as retribution than does simple annihilation of his consciousness. ISTM that retribution is most effective when its subject knows that it is happening and wants it to end, but is powerless to make it stop.
The DP lets scum off too easy.
Wow, you really are more stupid than dirt, aren’t you?
Take a few moments and try to familiarize yourself with reality. Then, hie down to someone with an actual brain to get him or her to show you how to look up stuff in the code of federal law. After that, check out what court-martial procedures, consequences, and methods of appeal are. When you get done with that, check out the structure of the Unites States Armed Forces and see who’s in charge (civilians).
Denies? Not allow? Hmmm, let’s take a return trip to the fed’s laws. While there, look up “Status of Forces Agreement.”
Evidently you’re unaware of certain other things involved in international law. One thing is a little thing called extradition treaty. Currently, there’s a very big case in the news here in South Korea. That case is about a French couple, civilians, who are accused of murdering their infant children and then returning to France. France does not have a treaty that permits returning their citizens to Korea for a trial that includes the possibilty of the death penalty. Does this mean the French couple will not be tried? No! They’re going to be tried in France by a French court.
Sorry, but that’s incorrect. We haved a number of Status of Forces Agreement treaties with countries where our troops are stationed. And, pursuant to those treaties, a number of our troops have been tried and convicted in foreign courts and incarcerated in foreign jails. One recent case that is quite the uproar in the Philippines involves two wildly divergent opinions on the interpretation of the Visiting Forces Treaty (kind of like the SOFA). The different opinions come from different agencies of the Philippine government. The Philippine Attorney General’s Office is fighting the courts to determine where a US Marine who was convicted of rape is to be held pending final outcome of the appeals process.
Further, we have US military members incarcerated here in South Korea for some crimes. They were arrested, tried, convicted, and incarcerated by Korean authorities.
The assertion is incorrect. As mentioned above, they are.