Friday, August 29, 2008

Civilian jury acquits former Marine of committing war crimes

The press is reporting that a civilian jury in a federal district court in Riverside, California has acquitted Jose Luis Nazzaro of charges that he committed war crimes in Falluja. Here's a link to the Reuters report on the verdict.

1 comment:

Cully Stimson said...

I found some quotes (which appear in the Wall Street Journal and the Los Angeles Times today) from people associated with the trial particularly interesting.

The jury forewoman was Ingrid Wicken, a physical education teacher at Riverside City College. After the acquittal, she said, “You don’t know what combat is until you’re in combat…It’s an extraordinary situation, and there just wasn’t enough evidence.”

Another juror (a Navy veteran) named Ted Grinnell said, “People heard shots, but nobody saw who did the shooting. That’s not enough.”

One of the defendant’s defense attorneys, Kevin McDermott, said after the acquittal that he hoped the jury’s decision would “effectively put cases like this out of business. I don’t think we’ll see a prosecution like this in the future.”