Blackfive: Marine Jailed Over Memorial Day Weekend…
Blackfive has a long post up about “Marine Jailed Over Memorial Day Weekend for Exercising 5th Amendment“;
First of all, Sergeant Jermaine Nelson needs our support. Second, he needs some help. If anyone knows of a habeus corpus specialist in DC, email me. More details on support are at the bottom of the post.
I have a few things brewing right now and this is one case where I need all of you to help out. If you google about this case, you’ll find a lot of information that contradicts the facts. In fact, a few media stories have the incident in the wrong battle of Fallujah and have claimed that the house where the incident occurred was demolished, when in fact, it was not. It’s actually been reoccupied by it’s original owners and visited by NCIS investigators.
Read the whole thing and help where you can…I know of three or four readers out there who know something about some of this. The rest of you, don’t be stingy.
Category: Legal, Support the troops
I can’t touch this one.
Jonn wrote: Actually, I knew you’d be unable to participate. I was thinking of some lurkers and emailers.
I know jack shite about Habeus, but I did offer to help on legal research if the lawyer wants it.
Was this by any chance the famous “Falluja marine” incident that involved Kevin Stites? Or is this yet another incident?
Jonn wrote: This appears to be a different one.
I’ve been writing on this case for a while now. It stinks as badly as the Pendleton 8 and Haditha…and B5 is correct about the NCIS agents being the same. in fact, there’s a group of them that has been corruptly running investigations for some time. I have stacks of documents to prove it. These cases are all disgusting, but the ONE good thing about there being so many of them is that they’re all interconnected. You can’t rule that there was undue command influence in one, and not rule the same on the others if the same people are involved. You can’t let one go free based on NCIS misconduct and not let the others go free if the same people were in both cases. See?
As much as I hate these cases and fight them, the NCIS is overplaying its hand, showing its ass, and giving us the information we need to expose the corruption. That, and Nelson’s brave act is something they never saw coming. They’re used to the plea bargains of the Pendleton 8 and Iron Triangle. They didn’t expect a Marine to stand and tell them no. Kudos to him…he may have just saved them all.
This is more for your readers, Jonn. A “Compulsion Order,” as it properly termed, strips an individual of their Fifth Amendment privilege against incriminating themselves by testifying. Because the government order literally deprives a citizen of their Fifth-Amendment Constitutional protection, the citizen is granted *certain* protections. See 18 U.S.C. 6002. This is a VERY Strictly-Observed Protection. See Pillsbury v. Conboy (a Supreme Court case).
Yes, the individual is granted a VERY-Strictly-Enforced form of *Immunity,* but the individual MUST testify, and testify Truthfully, lest the Compulsion Order be violated, and the individual be subject to additional prosecution. I have read the Blackfive post. This is NOT a *deal,* nor a benefit for the person under the Compulsion Order, although that is generally portrayed to be a *deal* in posts by those who do not fully understand the legal implications of a Compulsion Order.
I cannot say more.
Bob, Thanks for that. however, I’m familiar with a Compulsion Order. My reference to plea deals was pointed toward the P8/Iron Triangle cases, and only drew a parallel because it is in some ways similar. The bottom line is, even when faced with such an order, Nelson is choosing to say no. I personally applaud that is all.
jonn – nat helms and david allender have been following this case from the start over at Defend Our Marines (www.warchronicle.com). This is another Haditha-like travesty. Someone obviously has it in for Kilo Company Marines.