In association with the International Commission of Jurists

DOJ Wants the Death Penalty in Prosecution of Soldier

03 Jul DOJ Wants the Death Penalty in Prosecution of Soldier

03.07.07 |

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.

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The NewStream Dream
The NewStream Dream
19 years ago

What sentences do you think have been rediculouly light?

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jvarisco
jvarisco
19 years ago

“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.

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The NewStream Dream
The NewStream Dream
19 years ago

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 …

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Kevin Heller
Kevin Heller
19 years ago

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 handed life sentences. An additional three Marines got sentences of more than 20 years, and two others were sentenced to 10 years.

[snip]

Solis wrote a commentary in the October 2006 issue of Proceedings magazine for the independent Naval Institute in which he highlighted apparent inequalities in the sentences handed down in Vietnam cases and those arising out of Iraq and Afghanistan, according to his analysis.

Solis pointed to a number of cases in which the sentences didn’t appear commensurate with the crime. Take, he said, the court-martial of Army Pfc. Willie Brand, who was charged with assault, maltreatment and maiming of a prisoner in Afghanistan. The victim was found beaten to death in his cell, his hands chained over his head. Brand was convicted of all charges. His punishment was a reduction in rank to private and no jail time.

In the more than 3 1/2 years since the start of the Iraq war, four Iraqi deaths have led to criminal charges levied against Marines.

Prosecutions arising from two of those four deaths, including the Hamdania case, landed in Camp Pendleton courtrooms.

In 2004, a jury of Marine Corps officers found Maj. Clarke Paulus guilty of maltreatment and dereliction of duty in connection with the death of an Iraqi prisoner, but acquitted him of the most serious charge of assault and battery. Paulus, who ran the Iraqi detention camp, was dismissed from the Marine Corps but received no jail time.

There is also the case of 2nd Lt. Ilario Pantano, a former Marine accused and eventually exonerated of two counts of premeditated murder in Iraq in 2004 during a hearing at the Marine Corps base at Camp Lejeune, N.C.

Most recent is the Hamdania case, in which eight Camp Pendleton troops were jailed in May and charged a month later with kidnapping, murder, conspiracy and other offenses in the death of the 52-year-old Awad.

Prosecutors said the men plotted to kidnap and kill a man they believed to be an insurgent, then stage the killing scene and lie to investigators. And when they could not find the man they were looking for, they snatched Awad from a nearby home and stuck to the rest of the plan, prosecutors allege.

The first one to reach a plea agreement was Navy corpsman Melson Bacos, who on Oct. 6 pleaded guilty to kidnapping and conspiracy to kidnap and making false official statements, in exchange for 12 months in the brig with credit for time served since May 24.

The military judge presiding over Bacos’ case was stuck with the deal Bacos reached with prosecutors and had to set aside the 10-year prison sentence and dishonorable discharge he wanted to hand down.

Although the sentences and the deals changed a bit, it was a scenario that would quickly play out three more times in the Awad killing.

The next man to plead, Encinitas native Pfc. John Jodka III, pleaded guilty to aggravated assault and conspiracy to obstruct justice. The military judge’s sentence of five years and a dishonorable discharge was set aside in favor of the plea deal, in which Jodka will serve 18 months in the brig.

When Lance Cpls. Jerry Shumate and Tyler Jackson struck their plea deals, they each admitted to charges related to assault and obstruction of justice. Each man got 21 months, with the judges in their cases also setting aside the sentences they wanted to hand down, which were dishonorable discharges and eight and nine years in prison, respectively.

All four men also agreed to testify against the remaining defendants, most of whom are of slightly higher rank.

The plea deals struck by the four junior men came with the approval of the commanding authority, in this case, Lt. Gen. James N. Mattis.

As is standard, the terms of the deals were kept secret until after the judge reviewed the case and decided on a sentence. The deal was then revealed, and the defendants received the lesser of the two punishments, which, in the case of Hamdania, were the deals reached with Mattis’ approval.

Statistics as to how often criminal cases in the military end with a plea deal were not immediately available from military officials.

In the Hamdania case, Solis said last week, the relatively light sentences underscore the fact that lesser sentences are being meted out for crimes committed in Iraq.

“The judges in those cases thought they were worth (a number of) years, but the commanding authority gave sentences of a lesser duration or length,” he said.

In fairness, the military justice system has taken war crimes committed in Iraq more seriously over the past few months. I hope that trend continues.

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The NewStream Dream
The NewStream Dream
19 years ago

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.

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Kevin Heller
Kevin Heller
19 years ago

Who, exactly, is being prosecuted at the higher ranks this way?

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The NewStream Dream
The NewStream Dream
19 years ago

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.

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