A Marine corporal has been convicted for his role in the kidnapping and murder of an Iraqi civilian but spared additional prison time. He had previously accepted a plea bargain that would have landed him in jail for 12 years.
Thomas, of Madison, Ill., was among seven Marines and a Navy corpsman accused of snatching 52-year-old Hashim Ibrahim Awad from his house, marching him to a nearby ditch and shooting him after they botched an attempt to capture a suspected insurgent. Prosecutors said squad members tried to cover up the killing by planting a shovel and AK-47 by Awad’s body to make it look like he was an insurgent planting a bomb.
“I believe we did what we needed to do to save Marines’ lives,” Thomas said outside court, while declining to discuss the details of what happened that night. “I think anybody who understands what war is or what combat is understands.”
A military jury of three officers and six enlisted Marines deliberated Thomas’ sentence for less than an hour before returning its decision. On Wednesday, the jury convicted Thomas, 25, of kidnapping and conspiracy and acquitted him of other charges, including the most serious, premeditated murder. Prosecutors had recommended Thomas be sentenced to 15 years in prison with a dishonorable discharge, reduction in rank and a fine.
Thomas’ attorneys argued that their client was only following orders from his squad leader and asked that he be credited for the 519 days he has already served in the brig and be returned to active duty. “We failed him as a Marine Corps, because under good leadership, this Marine would not be here today,” Maj. Haytham Faraj told the court. “Consider where the responsibility lies.”
Thomas had agreed in January to plead guilty in the case, but withdrew the guilty pleas on the eve of sentencing in February. His attorney, Victor Kelley, said that pretrial agreement had called for 12 years in prison. “I was going to take a deal for 12 years because my lawyer said it was in my best interest, but then my lawyers called me back and said, ‘We’re going to fight this,’” Thomas said Friday. “That was all I needed.”
[…]
Four other Marines and the sailor charged pleaded guilty to reduced charges in exchange for testimony. A court-martial began Friday in a Camp Pendleton courtroom for Thomas’ squadmate Cpl. Marshall L. Magincalda. Proceedings are scheduled to begin next week in the case of squad leader Sgt. Lawrence Hutchins III. Both are charged with murder, kidnapping, conspiracy and other offenses.
Tom Umberg, a former military prosecutor, called Thomas’ punishment “pretty outrageous” and suggested the jurors might have been swayed by their own combat experiences. “I have never heard of a court-martial that convicted someone of conspiracy to murder and kidnapping and not adjudicate some kind of (prison) sentence,” Umberg said. “Obviously there was some sympathy, maybe even empathy, because all of the panel members had served in Iraq.”
Given that Thomas participated in a kidnapping, murder and then a criminal conspiracy to cover it up, the sentencing seems outrageous, indeed. Then again, I didn’t sit through the trial and hear what the jurors heard. And he has already served 14 months in the brig awaiting trial.
An old joke goes that “military justice is to justice as military music is to music.” In actuality, though, it’s probably more just than the civilian system. The guilty are more likely to be punished, because the commander has a lot more discretion and options available than do civilian prosecutors. At the same time, that means that good people who make mistakes are more likely to get leniency, because the act is considered in light of the whole man.
The fact that the people judging Thomas have been in his shoes is a feature, not a bug. While “jury of peers” has nothing to do with “peers” in the modern, American sense of the word, it nonetheless seems right that men should be judged by people in a position to empathize with their experiences. Putting Thomas’ fate in the hands of people who have never experienced the stress of combat would be grossly unfair.
The lead Marine on the ground, squad leader Hutchins, will be the last tried. I’ll be following that trial with interest.
As a side note, I’m not sure what the fact that Thomas had previously agreed to serve 12 years in prison says about the practice of plea bargaining. Defense attorneys often have a powerful incentive to get the trial over with and the risk of getting the maximum sentence is something that defendants naturally want to avoid. One wonders, though, how many people who would have been acquitted at trial wind up spending years in jail because they were persuaded to avoid that gamble.
Note: This was written over the weekend but inadvertently remained in my draft queue.
