03 Jul DOJ Wants the Death Penalty in Prosecution of Soldier
I have often criticized the ridiculously light sentences given to a number of U.S. soldiers convicted of serious war crimes in Iraq. I guess I should have been more careful what I wished for — the DOJ announced Tuesday that it is seeking the death penalty against Steven Green, a soldier accused of killing an Iraqi family and raping a 14-year-old girl:
The notice, filed in U.S. District Court, cites 12 alleged offenses related to the slayings, including that the deaths were premeditated, involved sexual abuse and were committed with a firearm.
Green, a former 101st Airborne Division soldier, was indicted Nov. 1 in the rape and murder of the girl and the slayings of three others in her family in March 2006.
“The defense is obviously disappointed that Attorney General (Alberto) Gonzales is seeking to execute a former soldier,” Green’s public defender, Patrick Bouldin, said in an e-mail to The Associated Press.
The attorney general has to approve all federal death penalty cases.
Bouldin declined to provide further comment.
Green was charged in a federal indictment with conspiracy to commit murder, conspiracy to commit aggravated sexual abuse, murder, aggravated sexual abuse, aggravated child sexual abuse, obstruction of justice and four counts of use of a firearm in a crime of violence.
Green, a 22-year-old former private first class from Midland, Texas, served 11 months with the 101st Airborne Division, which is based at Fort Campbell on the Tennessee state line. He received an honorable discharge and left the Army in May 2006. He was discharged because of an “anti-social personality disorder,” according to military officials and court documents.
He is being tried in civilian court in Paducah, Ky., because he was discharged before he was charged. No trial date has been set.
An Associated Press investigation in January found that an Army psychiatry team diagnosed Green as a threat to Iraqi civilians four months before the rape and murders.
According to military documents, Green was treated with drugs to regulate his mood before returning to duty in a violent stretch of desert in the southern Baghdad suburbs known as the “Triangle of Death.”
I will be very surprised if Green is sentenced to death. Nevertheless, it is important to reiterate that capital punishment is barbaric and immoral no matter who the defendant is or what crime he committed.
Even when the DOJ does the right thing, it does the wrong thing. I wish I could say that I’m surprised.
What sentences do you think have been rediculouly light?
“conspiracy to commit murder, conspiracy to commit aggravated sexual abuse, murder, aggravated sexual abuse, aggravated child sexual abuse”
You don’t think this guy should get the maximum sentence possible for such heinous crimes? It seems your problem is with the law, not the DOJ.
I think the argument is that they should get the maximum penalty allowed, but not the death penalty for a myriad of reasons.
Putting that aside, I really would like to know what sentences Professor Heller thinks are too light. Seems to me that people have gotten fairly reasonable sentences for their crimes …
jvarisco: your point is well taken. My basic problem is with the federal law that permits prosecutors to seek the death penalty. That said, prosecutors do not have to seek it — and they shouldn’t. So I also have problems with prosecutors who do. NewStream Dream: to see what I mean, take a look at this article: U.S. service members convicted of unlawful killings of civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan are receiving far shorter sentences than those handed down for similar crimes committed by troops during the Vietnam War, according to a military justice expert. At least 21 American troops have been convicted of various offenses in cases linked to the deaths of Iraqi civilians since 2003, but the vast majority are receiving light sentences, with some getting no jail time at all, according to a recent analysis by Gary Solis, a retired Marine legal officer who now teaches military law at Georgetown University. The sentences seem out of sync with those seen by Marines convicted of killing Vietnamese noncombatants, said Solis, who penned the Marine Corps’ official history of military justice in the Vietnam War. Of the 27 Marines who were convicted of unlawfully killing Vietnamese civilians, 15 were… Read more »
I think the major difference between now and Vietnam is that the military is using lighter sentences on lower ranking people to flip them and bring charges against people higher up in the proverbial chain. This method of conducting prosecutions seems to account for a lot of the differences.
Who, exactly, is being prosecuted at the higher ranks this way?
I am talking about the part of your post where it says:
“All four men also agreed to testify against the remaining defendants, most of whom are of slightly higher rank.”
That’s textbook flip the lower guys and move up the chain of command.