Appeals Court overturns sniper-urinator case
According to Military.com, the Navy-Marine Corps Court of Criminal Appeals overturned the December 2012 conviction of Marine Corps sniper Staff Sergeant Joseph Chamblin. Chamblin was found guilty of desecrating enemy corpses with urine;
Even though Chamblin pleaded guilty and got a relatively light sentence under a pretrial agreement, the appeals court found evidence of unlawful command influence that was never cured or eradicated in the case.
“The highest-ranking officer in the Marine Corps [Marine Corps commandant Jim Amos] told [then-Lt. Gen. Thomas Waldhauser, appointed by Amos as the oversight authority for the sniper cases] that the appellant and his co-accused should be ‘crushed,’ ” the court wrote. “This is an unusually flagrant example of UCI. We find that UCI this direct, and occurring at this level, is highly corrosive to public trust in this proceeding.”
The Marine Corps can still re-prosecute the case, but without Amos’ undue influence, that doesn’t seem likely.
Category: Marine Corps
I smell a power point coming. Stars and Bars fuck up, all will have to pay.
That is just Piss Poor leadership.
Maybe the General wasn’t doing Urinalysis and needs to?
I shouldn’t say that my first thought is that I would love to buy Chamblin two beers… one now and one then. I really shouldn’t.
He should be given a medal, not a sentence! I say piss on all of them!!
Just don’t record it, for the love of God…
My first BN CO told us (re the upcoming IG inspection): “you don’t get a pissing contest with a skunk”. Found that to be words to live by.
And most especially, don’t let someone put it on video if you do.
This was white name tape Army era. No one had cell phone cameras then /smile.
Wow, that is a long time ago. Did you know Elvis?
I can see it now, “NO pissing on enemy corpses AND if you do, DON’T let some asshole record you doing so, GOT THAT?”
And if someone says “fuck the taliban” for God’s sakes, destroy all the cell phones in your entire company !!!
Monumental stupidity all around in this case, with a good dose of nepotism thrown in.
Sure, the Staff Sergeant is now free but this still cost him his career and all the legal bills.
Since the conviction is overturned, does he get back pay and a lost promotion for the 5 years between conviction and now?
The only question I have is why this took so long? Its pretty clear that it was undue command influence and should have been called out by the judge in the case at the time.
It took so long, because the muslim president that demanded it was still in power!
Worst CMC ever…
Wise to redact your name, there.
Always.
So first off, you shouldn’t pee on enemy dead – even though you really may want to. I guess you could join the Kurds and do that to your hearts content, but you can’t the US military.
Second, I totally understand why these Marines would – they were dirt bags. They certainly shouldn’t have videoed it, however. That was plain stupid.
All that being said, the command influence was heavy handed, from the highest levels and despicable. I’m glad that this got overturned not because what they did was right, but because how the legal process was executed was rotten.
Not sure how you came to the conclusion that pissing on men who minutes before were trying to kill those infantry Marines makes them dirtbags. Agree that they should all have gone to Office Hours for being stupid enough to have video’d it though.
Sorry – my phrasing was not totally clear, I guess.
“Second, I totally understand why these Marines would. . .”
As in, “why these Marines would piss on the Taliban shit heads”. They, the Taliban, were the dirtbags of whom I spoke.
Those Marines certainly aren’t dirtbags for this, just not very smart for videoing themselves doing something they would have stopped doing the instant the colonel walked up.
How many instances of people getting in trouble for recording wrong-doing do we need before people get savvy? Apparently one more.
“Wingers” should not be elevated to these high levels of command. They invariably think they shit ice cream and there aren’t enough spoons to go around.
I am stealing that last bit. Epic.
It’s yours. First time I heard it, it was in reference to the fighter jocks at the Da Nang AFB. I watched them in action at their “O” club a couple of times. They definitely had some oversized egos.
“The difference between a fighter pilot and God is that God doesn’t think he’s a fighter pilot.”
After the blood and adrenaline has been flowing it’s pretty typical to need to take a piss. If dead Islamists suddenly were beneath it, oh well, nature calls.
Amos was a winger. Nuff said.
And this…
https://www.google.com/amp/amp.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/oct/14/semper-lie-marine-corps-commandant-james-amos-padd/
Never liked Amos. He was the worst of the Obama era hacks. Never knew he was a squid, figures. This whole thing was a NJP that got out of hand. You don’t piss on the dead and record it, dumbasses.
But this should have been a company or battalion displenary issue. The Taliban do much worse to prisoners. But when, The Most Transparent Administration in History, cares more about the enemy than your own people, what do you expect.
Screw Amos, he’s gone and forgotten.
Couldn’t agree more.
And an early Happy Birthday.
Semper Fi
We thoroughly repudiate that sonofabitch.
Good.
Can they prosecute Amos? He certainly racked up a long list of offenses relating to his lack of integrity. I’m not terribly familiar with the UCMJ and whatever other regulations apply, but there has to be something in that Godawful mess that is his career that warrants prosecution.
Just thinking the same. Amos should be prosecuted for UCI, IMO.
What a disgrace to the Corps. Chesty would pee on his face, I’ll wager …
Just as long as he doesn’t video the incident!!
Even though General Amos was Number One, he managed to piss away any chance of a conviction that would stick. If he were standing in front of me I’d tell him “sir, urine trouble.”
Gen Amos was number 1……with which finger?
Believe me, getting peed on was not the worst thing that happened to those taliban that day.
Piss on ALL of them.
Except the SSG that did the original pissing.
The dumb things people do never fail to amaze me. I never understood any of this from the very beginning of it.
Damn shame. Too late.
https://www.google.com/amp/www.nydailynews.com/amp/news/national/marine-filmed-urinating-dead-taliban-fighters-found-dead-report-article-1.1904147
I had not heard. What a fucking waste of a good man.
His stunt rated an admonition, and maybe some annoying bullshit extra duty, “don’t be so juvenile. You have a future” counseling, not -this- clusterfuck outcome.
“Desecrating a corpse” …
Compared to shredding it with artillery? WP? Roasting it in a burning vehicle?
What utter fucking hypocrisy…
Actually, there are solid reasons why one should not mutulate or desecrate the bodies of the enemy.
Dr. Jonathan Shay, a psychiatrist who specializes in treating the psychic wounds of war, is also the author of the book “Achilles in Vietnam: Combat Trauma and the Undoing of Character.”
He writes that word gets out and it causes the enemy to fight that much harder. Same is true of dehumanizing treatment of prisoners. Who wants to be taken prisoner if they know they will suffer a humilitating fate?
Someone should have told that to that Colonel who had ten executed Moro muzzies buried in pigskins in the Philippines during the Moro insurrection.
So during what is already a fight to the death, if we are nice to the corpses of the enemy dead, somehow that will result in the enemy being easier to kill?
You know they will be like, “Hey those guys aren’t so bad, I think I’ll just take it easy on this staying alive and killing them stuff. Maybe on second thought I’ll just morbidly walk over and ask them to shoot me, since they treat the dead so kindly.”
I’m not trying to dump on the good doctor or his other work, but I’m gonna guess he’s never been in a fight. If he was it was the Marques de Queensbury rules or someshit. Because you can be the nicest group of people on the earth and these assholes are still gonna chop your head off with a rusty hacksaw while cheering.
If anything our policy of “a kinder gentler machine gun hand” has had the opposite effect than what he describes.
Gee WHIZ.
That’s GOLD, Jerry, GOLD !!
The Corps dicking good Marines once again. Justice delayed.
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