Attorney for army major who allegedly killed 13 starts blog on the case
March 8, 2010 by donal brown
Filed under 1st Amendment News, Freedom of Speech / Press, News & Opinion
After a military judge issued a gag order in the trial of a man accused of killed 13 people at Fort Hood last year, the civilian lawyer for the man started a blog to make his case for the suspect. -db
By Larry Shaughnessy
Washington (CNN) — In response to a partial gag order, the attorney for the Fort Hood, Texas, shooting suspect has started a blog to make his case on the high-profile case.
The civilian attorney representing Maj. Nidal Hasan, the Army psychiatrist accused of killing 13 people at Fort Hood last November, has been working for weeks to get evidence in the case in preparation for trial. The routine legal procedure used in most criminal cases is called discovery.
Late last week, the Army finally began making some of that discovery evidence available to John Galligan, a retired Army colonel with extensive military law experience. As it made the evidence available, Galligan said, the military judge issued a gag order forbidding Galligan from inadvertently or purposefully “divulging, publishing or revealing, either by word or conduct,” information from the evidence.
Galligan responded to the gag order by launching a blog about the case at forthoodattorney.com.
On the blog, Galligan writes that “the U.S. Army is operating with a double set of standards” in Hasan’s case because, he said, there is no gag order for the Army prosecutors. Galligan described the evidence he still seeks as the type “routinely made available.”
Galligan also criticized the Army for refusing to let him depose Lt. Gen. Robert Cone, the base commander at Fort Hood at the time of the shooting. He titled that blog posting “Are They Afraid of What He Might Say?”
“It is incredulous that Colonel Morgan M. Lamb, a mid-level commander in the chain of command could determine, as he did on 26 February 10, that there was ‘no probable relevance or necessity of LTG Cone’s testimony,’” Galligan writes on the blog. “Clearly, military authorities superior in rank to LTG Cone need to weigh in and reverse this senseless decision.”
Cone left Monday for a year-long tour of Iraq.
Efforts by CNN to reach Fort Hood officials for comment on the blog were unsuccessful Monday.
Fort Hood officials told CNN last week that if Cone needs to be deposed, it can be done via secure videoconferencing.
Copyright 2010 Cable News Network. Turner Broadcasting System, Inc.
Every one who is accused of a crime has a right to a defense, but not the right to a fantasy as a defense. Having read the postings, and comments on this web-site, it seems like the defense attorney (a former military officer) is trying to walk around the “gag order”, and even beginning to act like he believes that Maj. Hassan is innocent. He has even gone so far as to claim that: “the prosecution is looking like it is going to ask for the death penalty” (or words to that effect). What in the world would any rational person believe would be the penalty for an officer killing 13 (or more) fellow soldiers? A few months in “rehab” and maybe a transfer to a less stressful job?
Here’s what happend during WWII, when the German sabateours were tried in a military court:
http://www.bsos.umd.edu/gvpt/lpbr/subpages/reviews/fisher-louis2.htm
Chapter 3 delineates the reasons why a military tribunal was established to try the Germans and how it would operate. Less than a week after the last of the saboteurs was arrested, President Franklin Roosevelt issued a proclamation creating a military tribunal to prosecute the Germans. Besides being Roosevelt’s preference, the military court was seen as the best option, because it would prevent immediate notification to the public that German submarines had reached
American shores undetected and because it could recommend the death penalty for the perpetrators. The proclamation forbid the Germans access to civil courts, directed the Attorney General to handle the prosecution, and permitted a two‑thirds vote for conviction and sentencing, all of which were inconsistent with existing judicial procedure. Although defense lawyers petitioned for review of the constitutionality of President Roosevelt’s proclamation, the request was rejected by a federal district court. After nineteen days of hearings and two days of deliberation, the tribunal recommended death for all eight Germans. Less than a week later, six of eight were electrocuted in Washington, DC.
And no Americans were killed during their attempt to inflitrate wartime America.
Military justice is not about giving the accused a platform to make political statements. It’s about securing a conviction of the guilty, and getting on with the job the military has to do. (Oh, and yes, people are acquited in Military Courts.)
This guy sounds like he has forgotten what it means to be an Army Officer.