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Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Continuance sought in Kreutzer capital court-martial
The No Man called my attention to news reports that the defense team in the Kreutzer case is seeking to delay the retrial, currently scheduled to start on 2 June. Here's a link to the Fayetteville Observer's account of a pretrial motions session.
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5 comments:
it seems this case is going back right where it started, "ineffective counsel" defense counsel declears upfront he is'nt competent to try this case. Should'nt this disqualifiy counsel at this stage? should'nt there be an article 39A and as the defendant is arraignedbn with TC requesting DC to be disqualified and seeking the judge to order JAG to detailed competent counsel? thereby muting ineffective at appeal starting at this very stage?
I think Kreutzer stands for the proposition that every DC in a capital case should perfunctorily declare themselves incompetent on the record in order to lay the groundwork for IAC on appeal.
What is more disturbing is that the Army Trial Defense Service (TDS) is not taking an interest in assigning obviously qualified counsel to these capital cases. Recently, an O-5 was stationed at Fort Bragg (where the Army tries all its capital cases) to be their "Chief of Capital Litigation" for the government. Why doesn't the defense shop have the same expertise there as well?
its funny when currently detailed counsel said the army system is broken and is not presently capable of competently litigating capital cases TC claims the system is fine. It seems DC is on the money with his assessment of the curent status of the armt system, I believe this case is going to force changes here.
I mean it seems the goverment may have a slam dunk case but they can't get there act together, guy shoots up his own unit and gets another shot at walking because the army who is charged with prosecuting and protecting his interest is'nt capable of trying him. I know am not the only one advocating a seperate devision with the JAG be set up for prosecution and defence of such cases? I mean its simply not a matter to be taken for granted when we are not talking about the ultimate punishment and by the way one am not am not an advocate of for reasons aplenty.
Let the feds try the capital cases. Services simply don't have the resources.
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