Convictions twice overturned on appeal so they try again....
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retrial is set to begin Monday at Camp Pendleton for a Marine convicted in the 2006 killing of an Iraqi civilian -- one of the most high-profile and legally and politically complex court martials of the Iraq war.
Sgt. Lawrence Hutchins was convicted in 2007 by a Marine jury of unpremeditated murder in the killing of a 52-year-old former Iraqi police officer in Hamandiya, west of Baghdad.
The killing was meant as a warning to Iraqis to stop planting roadside bombs and cooperating with insurgent snipers attacking U.S. troops.
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Appeals courts twice have overturned Hutchins' conviction: once on grounds that the NCIS illegally obtained a confession, once because his lawyer was allowed to retire on the eve of trial. The Marine Corps has opted for a retrial.
Hutchins has spent more than six years behind bars, first at the federal prison at Ft. Leavenworth, Kan., and then the brig at Miramar Marine Corps Air Station in San Diego. Since mid-2013, he has been free on appeal, restored to his rank of sergeant and assigned to Camp Pendleton, living with his wife and children.
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Christopher Oprison, a former Marine and Hutchins' defense attorney, has promised a vigorous defense in which he will assert that the Marine Corps is continuing to pursue his client for political purposes.
The case, he said, "is an indictment of the entire military justice system. The prosecution is basing its case on the information obtained by rogue NCIS agents who forced these young Marines to confess under threats and coercion."
Oprison insists that comments made by Navy Secy. Ray Mabus in 2009 alleging guilt by the Pendleton 8 have tainted the case and prevented Hutchins from getting a fair trial.
"The political pressure to make an example out of Sgt. Hutchins is palpable," Oprison said. "Enough is enough. The gloves are off. We hope to have Sgt. Hutchins home with his wife and children on Father's Day -- a free man."
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