POSTINGS FROM THE SWEETWATER LIBRARY

(SIXTH IN A SERIES)

RONIN'S MEMOS

(Tim and Mary Harrington, George Reilly co-contributors)

"No one knows the meaning of innocence except those who are!"

-Unknown

~~~

"Convince your colonies that you are able,

and not afraid to control them,

and depend upon it,

obedience will be the result of

your deliberations."

Lord North in a speech to the English Parliment before Parliment's 1774

passage of the Quartering Act and other Coercive Acts

American colonists condemened as the "Intolerable Acts."

~~~

JAG HUNTER HERE:

Preamble - Just last evening Tim and Mary Harrington and myself were told, while putting the final flourishes to this posting, our importunities will be ignored, we're wasting our time. Supremely powerful military governors know all of what's to be exposed here (it's common knowledge), nothing's going to change (the Constitution is old news), it's just the way things are, and Larry Hutchins and Ray Girouard are going to stay locked up as innocents (with all the others)...move along, move on, there's nothing here to see.

Then the following arrogant taunts were given voice: Whatta ya goin' to do about it! And why are we surprised!

Lord North's comments are quoted above because they chillingly proclaim what America's military politicians are doing to us--American citizens here at home. But now--speaking personally--having suffered for almost twenty years the insolence, haughtiness, audacity, arrogance, and pride first from John Bitoff, then most recently David Brahms, Jim Mattis, I must tell you Lord North's words starkly depict what America's professional criminals holding high command are doing to peoples worldwide without fear of criminal consequence.

Command racketeers--from Commander in Chief Bush down the chain of command--are so ashamed, so fearful about their personal fates should America's populace be made aware of and then scrutinize their scheme of military operations their willing to bury alive innocent servicemen (our sons and daughters, our comrades) to enrich, shield and save themselves.

I'm not concerned here with questions swirling about the rightness or wrongness of the tactics our troops employ to seek out, locate, engage, and destroy immoral insurgent street fighters who refuse to wear uniforms and threaten the lives of those U.S. servicemen every moment of every day.

I am instead outraged beyond description that America's senior commanders are capable and willing to imprison innocent U.S. servicemen to quell or altogether block discussion and debate of politically sensitive military adventures if only to protect their careers and themselves from perceived political danger.

I'll do my best to communicate plainly and clearly. I singularly accept in advance all responsibility by any failure to do so.

With that I pass to you, the reader, the taunts of Navy Rear Admiral John Bitoff and Marine Corps Brigadier General David Brahms taunts.

As you absorb these words, are you surprised?

And whatta goin' to do about it when you're done?

~~~~~~~

Marine Sergeant Lawrence G. Hutchins' squad mission that night and early morning (25/26 April 2006) was to set up an ambush in the vicinity of checkpoint 203. This day was just like yesterday, and would be just like tomorrow. Higher command were detailing Hutchins' men with other Marine infantry units to patrol, raid, and ambush in a watch bill like rotation each day, every day, months without end.

Hutchins and his men would come to be known as the Camp Pendleton Eight.

Sgt. Hutchins' team stepped out at 1700 hours for their twelve-hour ambush operation en route to a palm grove previously used as a patrol base. This position offered good concealment and decent cover but Hutchins could not make out the road ahead even using his night vision goggles. It was too dark.

Hutchins moved his men closer to the road at about 2200 hours sacrificing cover in exchange for a more optimal field of view. The sergeant pushed Corporals Thomas and Magincalda, Lance Corporal Jackson and Private First Class Jodka in to the tall grass about 70 meters north of his position. Lance Corporals Pennington and Shumate and Navy Third Class Petty Officer--Hospitalman Corpsman Bacos were with Hutchins next to a tree.

"It appeared to be a quiet night with no vehicle or personnel traffic until 0238 hours on the 26th."

"At 0238 Lcpl. Shumate spotted movement on the east side [of the road]. Hutchins immediately reported this to KILO TWO." Before KILO TWO could get the question out of his mouth regarding a shovel, Hutchins' spotted the shovel with the stranger insurgent and ordered engagement in accordance with his rules of engagement for an ambush.

"We initiated the ambush with M16 fire...volleyed with my two SAWs [squad automatic weapons]. A moment later we began to take AK47 fire..."

HM3 Bacos pronounced the stranger dead at the scene after the shooting stopped. The QRF [quick response force] arrived soon after to retrieve the insurgents body. Hutchins' squad accompanied the QRF to link up with RAZRO SIX.

This narrative, taken directly from Larry's combat action report, has never before been publicly reported. A Navy doctor's autopsy examination narration (released just days ago) is completely consistent with Sgt. Hutchins' official written submission dated 26 April 2006. No one was ever able to identify the dead insurgent stranger.

Three weeks after the Hutchins' ambush, on 9 May 2006, Army Staff Sergeant (Ranger) Raymond L. Girouard led another infantry unit into combat against a known enemy hard target near Hutchins' area of operations. Ray's operation was a larger, daylight airborne assault with the objective to wipe out a snake pit terrorist training camp.

In the days leading up to the training camp raid Staff Sergeant Girouard and his men were told they were going on a "suicide mission" against a hard target fortress providing cover to a large, well armed enemy.

Girouard and Hutchins' missions were grandly successful. In reward and recognition of their bravery, gallantry, intrepidity and valor in battle Marine Sergeant Lawrence Hutchins was sentenced to 15-years in a military dungeon. Army Ranger Staff Sergeant Raymond Girouard was awarded 10-years. Their men received greater or lesser punishments.

After action reports, computer ledgers, logs, and records with recorded personal accounts revealed in the past two weeks allied with previously published public reports regarding ongoing U.S. military operations and planning shed bright for the first time upon politically sensitive, highly controversial, newly developed urban warfare combat tactics and intelligence gathering methods.

The tactics Sergeants Girouard and Hutchins rehearsed in real world, real time environments (undergoing trial and error research and development 2006, now adopted as standard operating procedure) are the brain-child of Marine four-star General James Mattis in association with companies of other Marine and Army flag officers.

Neither Hutchins or Girouard were told, nor did they realize they were field-testing the "Warrior Monk's" (General Mattis' nom de guerre) scheme of urban street-fighting. Neither did either sergeant apprehend their most dangerous enemy was behind them, a threat soon manifested in betrayal at the hands of their own senior officers.

Negative and stereotypical reports were already flooding the airwaves thanks to those segments of the press corps and Congress who hate the military. Abu Ghraib and Pat Tillman were stories of grand political theatre. General Mattis (and his cohorts), frightened by the withering congressional and media scrutiny they'd surely suffer, developed a public relations counter-offensive to deflate and defeat a foreseeable runaway, uncontrollable, frenetic public assault should Mattis' urban warfare plan be exposed.

Mattis' public relations counter-assault demanded the ritual sacrifice of Girouad, Hutchins, and any other expendable warrior who could (unknowingly) take a bullet in service to what Mattis regarded a cause transcendent to constitutional protections of life and liberty. Girouard and Hutchins and their men were sent to military prison camps, innocent all, to change the subject and divert and deflect attention in anticipation of what Mattis feared was a potential leak regarding his supremely controversial and politically explosive urban war-fighting methods.

Exploiting the facility of courts-martial, devious and clever public affairs officers, judge advocates, military detectives, and command racketeers--under orders from Commander in Chief Bush and General Mattis and his minions--first cobble together, then perfectly crafted fictional cover stories of war crimes committed by errant and inept Soldiers and Marines.

Innocent infantrymen and mud-Marines were charged and chained like animals while the bogus cover stories were leaked to hyper-active media personalities and blabber-mouth congressmen. Courts-martial were announced and docketed. Press conferences gave voice to the make believe criminal accusations. A million dollar media center was designed and constructed. The flames of the funeral pyre grew to consume innocent grunts while hypnotized media moths (Mattis' moths) drew near. Mattis' last-ditch media/congressional counter offensive worked like a charm as Hutchins and Girouard were burned at the stake as the mouths of the easily manipulated opened wide and watched in wonderment.

(Note: For more on the efficacious use of cover-stories see Ed Offley's recently published expose--SCORPION DOWN--regarding the charade perpetrated to prevent news of the communist-Russian attack and sinking of a U.S. submarine.)

Mattis' diversion works flawlessly to this moment. Distracted from the real-world of inter-city combat, press professionals and cozy congressman gravitate to warm hearing rooms and klieg lights lulled by duplicitious military royalty. There, smooth generals and PAOs assure their gullible audiences, those stuck on stupid, that the few ugly details of street fighting--what Mattis and his merry men call "war crimes"--are (were) the unavoidable results and consequences of reckless and incompetent Soldiers/Marines that beneficient and just commanding officers are more than capable of punishing.

The cover stories are swallowed whole.

But from combat after action reports, combat journals, and log books, and intelligence reports there emerges the real scope and operation of our brave warriors. There exist graphic accounts depicting the emotionally charged stark reality regarding CINC Bush's approved and ordered rules of engagement (ROE) for urban combat operatons against terrorists insurgents in the badlands.

But none of these reports were admissible (in fact the information was banned outright) at courts-martial to defend innocent warriors.

Teresly, CINC Bush's ROE (authored by the Warrior Monk) authorizes Army and Marine infantrymen to "get the job done." Marine Lieutenant Nathan Phan (call sign "RONIN") instructs and informs us that "what is necessary" for American gound troops to complete their assigned missions routinely causes "unnecessary suffering" for Iraqi civilians.

Here is a portion of what Lt. Phan recounts: "Our company's area of operation [AO] is the province of [deleted] about a 20x30 square kilometer piece of real estate. The city of Falluja can fit over twenty times in our AO...[province deleted] is a hotbed of arms smugglers, dealers, and black market traffickers, not to mention fanatical insurgents."

"So in order to establish security and stability in this...region, we are forced to move around constantly. Since [province deleted] is mostly flat irrigated farmland, there is no covered and concealed position to establish patrol bases. So the only practical alternative is to take a [civilian] house for a few days."

"I'm what they call a Paying Agent. It means I'm authorized [by CINC Bush's ROE] to reimburse Iraqi civilians with U.S. government dollars as restititution in the event we damage their personal property or cause unnecessary grief."

"This tends to happen a lot."

"We conduct raids in the dead of night, kick families out of their homes and take over, sometimes for a few hours, usually for a few days. We do this on a regular basis."

"We use the house as a patrol base, a safe haven for Marines, to conduct operations. Then pay the homeowner for 'wear and tear' for their homes. It's either this or put my Marines in the open, in Harm's Way, exposed to indirect fires and snipers."

"Screw the civilians."

"This is why I'm a Paying Agent. So I sign for my U.S. government cash and go on my way."

CINC Bush knows all this as do uncounted generals and admirals (flag officers).

Our commanders don't want you, the public, to know.

Ergo: Invented cover stories and counterfit courts-martial of innocent warriors.

I'm not going to recount here how a court-martial is used to routinely punish the innocent. Nor am I going to recount the fictions that were created around Hutchins, Girouard, and their men.

I will tell you this: Naval Criminal Investigative Service Special Agent James H. Connolly dug up a stranger in Iraq. Then Connolly (with his team of NCIS goons) wrote a ghost story about how Sgt. Hutchins and his men murdered a man no one was ever able to identify.

The autopsy report (now revealed) was blocked from use in Sgt. Hutchin's defense. So was every other physical piece of exculpatory evidence.

You've already read in Larry's own words what happened on the night/morning of 25-26 April 2006. Larry's was under orders that day to kill enemy insurgents in ambush.

Staff Sergeant Ray Girouard was under the same orders issued by Black Hawk Down's Army Colonel Michael Steel in May. Army Criminal Investigative Division (CID) detectives didn't bother with autopsies in Ray's circumstance. The bodies, never identified, were collected up by Army personnel and allowed to disappear.

Raids and ambushes in the target-rich Iraqi urban environs are so frequent, so necessary, and time sensitive that infantry units are rotated hourly, daily, in a month-to-month schedule that reads like a watchbill.

RONIN logs: "I get to Camp [deleted] and find my guys busy preparing to push out to the field."

Sounding just like Col. Steel in his pre-battle exhortations (captured on DVD, suppressed from public view and denied as exculpatory evidence in defense of Ray Girouard during his March 2007 court-martial) RONIN tells us: "Believe it or not, I love the field. It's where Marines get to really be Marines. It's the reason why so many of my guys joined the Corps. To go out in the 'bush' look for the enemy, kill him and come back to tell stories about it. It's where Marines build camaraderie and esprit de corps.

It's where I really get to know my guys. Most importantly, it's where I get to do my job (my emphasis), conduct counterinsurgency operations in order to destroy the enemy and establish stability. As a bonus, in the field, time goes by a hell of a lot faster than being in the rear."

This is the world of the urban combat infantryman and mud-Marine that no warrior is allowed to speak about publicly in a politically charged, politically correct atmosphere where lurks military-hating segments of the media and congress ready to cannibalise our own troops.

The betrayal.

America's military politicians are so afraid to explain and display to regular citizens the violence that is the soul of modern day urban combat. So they selectively pick isolated events, magnify them out of context and proportion, wrongly (but intentionally) name them war crimes, and then rob innocent warriors (and their immediate families) of their liberty and lives.

The scheme of maneuver in urban street fighting--now adopted as standard operating procedure--is precisely as narrated above by the brave men who are there! We are targeting all military aged males (MAMs--a euphanism to describe all males capable of inflicting injury on U.S. troops). Infantry units just like Hutchins' and Girouard's are deployed hourly in "HUNTER-KILLER TEAMS" to seek out, engage, and destroy enemy personnel and equipment. Intelligence is collected in every way possible.

But you're not to know any of this.

Instead, random, elaborate, and unbelievable cover stories are fabricated and crafted, built around innocent warriors like Hutchins and Girouard to divert attention away from the brutal reality of urban, insurgent, terrorist street fighting.

Courts-martial operations discussed and exposed on these JAG HUNTER pages for almost six years are known to you as prefect instruments in the advancement of the criminal adventures of corrupt military detectives making work for corrupt JAGs to effectively shield and protect the command racketeers.

Courts-martial are not courts. Juries don't wear uniforms. Courts-martial don't allow a defendant to confront an accuser. Innocent acts are regularly criminalized. Forced confessions are a staple, common place and encouraged. Exculpatory evidence is withheld or destroyed as a matter of course. Information impeaching the government's case is made to disapppear. Summary judgments by professional criminals in command is standard operating procedure.

None (and so much more) of information presented here--always available and now released--was allowed for use in the defense of any infantryman in any of the hundreds of courts-martial so far suffered by U.S. ground combat troops.

Warriors are ordered to military catacombs to waste away until they're forgotten.

Girouard and Hutchins never stood a chance.

The generals know both men did exactly what they were ordered to do!

Mean while, America's flag officers are conducting raids and ambushes in the dead of night against U.S. citizens stateside destroying families and homes on a regular basis.

Unfortunately for families of Hutchins and Girouard (and all the rest) there's no "Paying Agent" authorized to reinburse U.S. citizens with U.S. government dollars as restitution for the unnecessary and wanton damage.

Girouard and Hutchins and their men (with so many others) are wasting away in military dungeons--innocent men all!

Screw the sergeants!

Screw the civilians!

Pin medals on the generals!

Here endth the lesson.

BEWARE THE FURY OF THE PATIENT MAN!

© Copyright 2008 The JAG HUNTER

Walter Francis Fitzpatrick, III
P.O. Box 4003
Silverdale, Washington 98383-4003

The JAG Hunter

Email: walt@silverlink.net

Wednesday, 20 June 2007

Sergeant Lawrence G. Hutchins, III, USMC
Box 555226
Camp Pendleton Marine Corps Base
Camp Pendleton, California

92055

Dear Sergeant Hutchins,

Now hear this Marine!

Rich Brannon, your civilian lead defense counsel, is actively obstructing your participation in your own defense.

Brannon leads a flying wedge of defense lawyers, coached by Harvard Professor/Counselor Alan Dershowitz, running blockers to knock down people such as myself holding the key proving your innocence and offering you freedom.

I’m certain, as in the case of Army Staff Sergeant Raymond Girouard, that sub rosa (secret) discussions are cobbling together and crafting a back-room deal between Rich Brannon, Alan Dershowitz, and government functionaries the purpose of which is to keep you in a Defense Department dungeon for a good part of the rest of your life.

You’ve already been found guilty.

Brannon is on the record (reported under the advice and counsel of Alan Dershowitz) declaring your criminal conduct the act of a sick man (that would be you Sergeant). All that’s left to determine is how long you’ll be kept in the military catacombs.

Brannon (aided by criminal companions like Dershowitz) is picking the pockets of anyone paying him.

All of this is going on while there exists a dispositive document record you and your defense team have reviewed in relevant part, laying down the template for the criminal operation of modern-day military ceremonies we know as “courts-martial.”

Elements of that pattern incorporate declarative written conclusions of guilt by accusers then free to assemble their own personal hearings—populating the hearing by their own hand—to examine their own invented and false accusations. The design allows for criminalizing non-crimes, naming innocent acts as somehow violations of military virtue. It allows for incompetent confessions that may be coerced or created (by criminal impersonation—forgery).

The courts-martial system embraces and encourages introduction of impostor or “ghost,” personages used to witness fictionalized episodes. More, JAGs routinely suborn perjury of real people (procured or induced) to witness in support of their military fantasies.

And advocates to the admirals and generals (JAGs) willfully destroy any written or electronic record that reports the truth. Destruction of real, tangible physical evidence is required in the world of make believe.

Criminals in high-command, convening authorities like Lt.Gen. Mattis in your general court-martial (agents deputized by the commander-in-chief), are perfectly positioned to operate corrupt and corrupted military ceremonies (courts-martial) that give life to government mendacity while simultaneously taking or destroying your life (along with the lives of family and friends).

Mattis, for instance, willfully relies upon the incompetent and infected investigative work product of JAMES H. CONNOLLY and ERNEST A. SIMON. These men—CONNOLLY and SIMON—are known and reported federal felons and extant participants in a long-running criminal enterprise reported widely, publicly, and separately. SIMON and CONNOLLY are then—as recognized and reported crooked cops—completely undone and impeached in their duties regarding their investigation of your case.

CONNOLLY and SIMON, along with other Naval Criminal Investigative Service special agents, are named as federal criminals this day in reports filed with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Defense Criminal Investigative Service, and the NCIS among other police organizations. The NCIS is reported, as an organization, a group of henchmen working for contumacious flag officers —our admirals and generals—recently recognized a military mafia (quoting Army Major General Taguba from his contemporary The New Yorker magazine interview).

You are being punished without law in a system wherein these criminals in command are themselves immune from consequence.

You, Rich Brannon, Alan Dershowitz, and other members of your defense team are advised on these matters previously and aggressively in the belief that this information, conjoined with allied Navy-Marine Corps documents, stands as the strongest column in your defense.

My immediate understanding is you’ve directed Rich Brannon that these writings and my personal testimony are to be used in your defense to free you from incarceration.

Brannon and his team of merry men have ignored your directives. One month out from the commencement of you military ceremony, there are no subpoenas issued summoning document production or my appearance. There has been no trial preparation of any type or kind.

More than that, outside observers—I among them—are convinced your defense team holds you cloistered, forcing your silence by keeping you out of sight and out of mind. It’s believed Brannon, Dershowitz, and cohorts are determined to foreclose upon what’s commonly considered one of your chief opportunities for freedom.

Your mom and dad have been overpowered, and are overwhelmed. They can’t help you. Besides that, they’re not rich enough to buy you out of your troubles, as for example, our more senior military commanders are able to buy their way out of their travails (think of Colonel Steele, for instance, paying Professor Dershowitz as discussed anon).

Speaking for myself, I’m particularly troubled by reports of Harvard Professor /Attorney Alan Dershowitz’s unsolicited insinuation into your case.

Dershowitz is retained civilian defense counsel to Army Colonel Michael Steele involving Army Staff Sergeant Raymond Girouard (and others—the IRON TRIANGLE case). Your situation is nearly identical to that of Ray’s.

Ray Girouard’s GCM was the work product of Army JAGs who created a fiction born of coerced testimony used to punish Ray without the benefit of law. Army JAGs forced and suborned perjured testimony in an act of attainder while Ray’s defense team sat on their hands and studied their shoes. Now, Ray Girouard finds himself behind bars at the United States Disciplinary Barracks, Fort Leavenworth.

Ray Girouard demanded that Colonel Steele testify so as to support Ray’s going free as an innocent man. Army JAGs, Alan Dershowitz, and others successfully blocked Ray’s desperate efforts at self-defense by blocking Steele from undergoing public scrutiny and examination.

I’m being blocked now by your defense attorneys from testifying on your behalf regarding the criminal conduct of NCIS Agents CONNOLLY and SIMON (and others). My personal experience with the corrupt and corrupted courts-martial system is also being silenced.

Alan Dershowitz’s immediate participation in your court-martial is no coincidence. Dershowitz’s involvement in your case, due to active solicitation by your federal representative—Congressman William Delahunt, while contemporaneously defending Colonel Michael Steele sounds a blaring alarm siren.

All of this is observed in an atmosphere whereupon you’ve already been found guilty, as publicly voiced by a staff attorney to Congressman William Delahunt, to your parents and others. Delahunt’s mouthpiece further observed all that remains to be determined is how long you’ll be Ray Girouard’s neighbor. And again, know this; Brannon’s advance of a PTSD defense admits your guilt while offering an excuse for your criminal conduct.

Then this question to you Sergeant Hutchins: How much time do you think you’re going to do?

No attempt is being made, so far as I or anyone watching closely can tell, to protest your innocence by way of aggressive defense. Rich Brannon, working hand-to-glove with Dershowitz, has become your greatest threat.

Meanwhile, no one can get to you to sound the alarm. More than that, Rich Brannon—after declaring your guilt in advance and in public—has gone to ground.

I must testify on your behalf on those matters profiled here and elsewhere. I can do that for the price of cab-fare to the nearest video teleconference site anywhere inside the Kitsap Naval Base complex footprint surrounding my residence. If Lt.Gen. Mattis persists in advancing your GCM after reading this letter, and refuses to respond to efforts to defend yourself, this letter must be read aloud during your GCM and a copy introduced into the written record.

Here endth the lesson.

Beware the fury of the patient man,

/s/

Walter Francis Fitzpatrick, III

United States Navy, Retired – Surface Warfare (command-at-sea qualified), Naval Parachutist
Still serving – John 15:13
B.S. United States Naval Academy (with military honors), Class of 1975
MBA Technology Management, UOP 2002
The JAG Hunter

Mother asks for light sentence for Hamdania Marine

[Lance Corporal Robert Pennington] told the court Friday during an unsworn statement, meaning he could not be cross-examined by prosecutors, that he feels remorseful.

SHOW ME THE FLIER FROM IRAQ!

LANCE CORPORAL PENNINGTON court-martial update: Supervisory Special Agent James H. Connolly suborns perjury!

"Also testifying for the government was James Connolly, a Naval Criminal Investigative Service special agent who interrogated platoon members in Iraq.

Connolly testified about having met with family members of Awad and learning that within a day or two of the slaying, a flier had been handed out in Hamdania by members of the platoon with a threatening message that if anyone was caught digging a hole for a roadside bomb they, like Awad, would be killed."

JAG Hunter here: A couple of things--

To begin Supervisory Special Agent to the PENDLETON EIGHT case, James Conolly, is a known and reported federal felon criminal. Connolly's criminal conduct is reported to FBI agents resident in Silverdale, WA.

One of Connolly's criminal acts was to hand deliver a "flier" threatening physical harm. Unlike the situation facing Lcpl. Pennington, Connolly's flier actually exists (people have seen it).

Any one seen the flier from Iraq Connolly testified about?

Than this: Jodka's and Bacos' testimonies are worthless. Any statement issued as the work product of NCIS coercion or duress is to be disregarded out of hand. Connolly is personally responsible for this subornation of perjury now in plain view.

Lastly, reporters from the North County Times, to include Mr. Walker, and The Kitsap Sun (Connolly's neighborhood paper) are completely aware Connolly is a criminal. And they've seen Connolly's flier along with much more. Those who fail to report on these facts at the expese of Lcpl. Pennington and his family are, frankly, monsters.

Repeating for emphasis: Show me the flier from Iraq!

Here endth the lesson.

The JAG Hunter. Copyright©2007.

THE EXPLANATION FROM LANCE CORPORAL PENNINGTON'S PARENTS

"In a unanimous decision by all four members of his defense team, it was decided none of the Marines had a chance at a fair trial."

______________________________________

Begin quote
Terry Pennington ; Deanna home
Sent: Tuesday, February 13, 2007 8:18 PM
Subject: Court Martial Day


I have bad news and I have more bad news. And maybe, just maybe, some good news.

Here is the deal:

The "Pendleton 8" were convicted by the government before they ever even left Iraq. That's why they were immediately placed in shackles when they arrived at the brig at Camp Pendleton. That's why they've been in solitary cells at that brig ever since. That's why every motion we've made with our defense team to try to lessen their pre-trial punishment has been denied. And that's why our Marine, Rob, pled guilty to a couple of the counts against him today.


In a unanimous decision by all four members of his defense team, it was decided none of the Marines had a chance at a fair trial. The jury pool, some 205 military personnel, was made up of their "peers" as mandated by military law. Their "peers" had no combat experience. Not one of them had any "trigger time". None of them could possibly fairly judge the actions of our Marines. All available evidence pointed to convictions.


In the military world, a conviction of conspiracy to commit murder or the commission of a kidnapping offense has only one possible mandatory sentence. Life in prison. The only question left to be answered after such conviction is with or without the possibility of parole. That's it. No more discussion. Since we knew these things our defense attorneys went to the "convening authority" Lt Gen James Mattis and asked if there were any possibility for a "deal". He said yes - he was willing to cap Rob's sentence at something far lower than life in return for a guilty plea. This meant admitting, in open court, on the record, to the things he has been charged with. Or some of them, at least. He has now done that. He has admitted he knew what they were doing on that dark night in Iraq last April was "illegal". He must also testify against the remaining three from his squad not already convicted should they continue on the road they're on and contest their trial.


What's the good news you ask? The good news is he will not spend the rest of his life in prison. I cannot at this time divulge what the cap is on his sentence. The second bit of good news is that Rob is doing well and is looking forward to the healing process that will get him out of the hell that has been his life since his experiences in Fallujah. We have also come to know and understand just how devasting the effect of the losses that he suffered in November and December of 2004, and how they have forever changed his life.


We will all be in court for the next few days, possibly until sometime Friday, talking about how much we love and support him and what a great guy he is in an effort to get him the lightest sentence possible. After that we'll be seeking your help in getting out the word that we need letters written to the aforementioned convening authority, Lt Gen James Mattis to try to secure a clemency deal for Rob. Failing that, we have a lame duck president who will be passing out a few pardons at the end of his next term. He could use your input as well.


Due to the fact that we have to try hard to not aggravate General Mattis at this time (since he can do us some good) we have to lay low and not go on network TV and radio blasting what has occurred. I don't know where I'll find the strength to control myself but hopefully it will turn up. We will advise you of mailing addresses, email addresses, that sort of thing when we need your letter writing help. There is also an appeal process that's automatic in military law but that could take years if not decades so there's not much help there.

More when we know more,
Terry & Deanna

Close quote

PENNINGTON UPDATE--ANOTHER PLEA DEAL!!

Local Marine enters split pleas in murder case

"Pennington faces a maximum sentence of life in prison, though this jail term is likely capped by the pretrial deal."

REPEATING FOR EMPHASIS

PENNINGTON RECANTS!

This email just in from my Marine Corps associate and friend, Don:

It was just announced on the 0930 Channel 7 local
news that LCpl Robert Pennington, USMC withdrew
his "Guilty Plea". Things are looking better all the time.
I feel certain all four will now have a "Full Blown" GCM
in front of a panel and not just a Judge. If these four
are exonerated of the charges, I wonder where that will
leave the other four who took the plea and are now
considered sentenced prisoners?

Court-martial due to begin Tuesday for Marine accused of murder

"Lance Cpl. Robert B. Pennington, 22, planned to appear for a court-martial in Camp Pendleton on Tuesday, almost 10 months after Hashim Ibrahim Awad was dragged from his home and shot by the eight member squad who were looking for an insurgent."

NO DEAL FOR LANCE CORPORAL PENNINGTON!!

Court-martial set for Marine from Mukilteo!

"Pennington accused Naval Criminal Investigative Service agents of threatening him with the death penalty and telling him it would be a mistake to ask for an attorney."

JAG Hunter here: WELL DONE to Lcpl. Robert Pennington!! It needs be pointed out James H. Connolly, supervisory special agent in the PENDLETON EIGHT investigation, is contemporaneously criminally named to the FBI for communicating a threat in a separate episode near Bremerton-Silverdale, WA.