Accused of crimes:


October 09, 2006

Vietnam vets come to defense of accused troops

Ken Maguire
Associated Press


BROCKTON, Mass. — Patrick Barnes’ crew cut is graying, but he still sits upright in his chair as if there’s no backrest. Before clamping his cell phone shut, he says “Semper Fi” to a buddy instead of a simple “bye.” He’s as much a Marine today as when he earned a Purple Heart in Vietnam. In war, he says, things happen like that - “boom!” - and triggers are pulled in split-second decisions.

That’s why Barnes and fellow Vietnam veterans, some of whom are old friends from Brockton High School, are starting a fund for American troops charged with war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan to hire experienced criminal defense lawyers.


“We’re not concerned with guilt or innocence,” he said. “We just want to make sure they have the best defense possible. Sitting here in Brockton or Quincy or New York or California, we don’t know what happened.” Other “defense funds” have sprouted amid publicity of investigations into alleged war crimes. The mother of a Marine Corps lieutenant from New York who was cleared of murder charges created a fund, as did a group led by a retired Marine officer in Greensboro, N.C., who was twice wounded in Vietnam.

Among the high-profile cases: Marine troops are under investigation for allegations they deliberately killed 24 Iraqis civilians - many of them women and children - in a revenge attack after one of their own died in a roadside bombing last Nov. 19 in Haditha, an insurgent stronghold in western Iraq.

In a separate investigation, a Marine from Plymouth is among seven Marines and a Navy corpsman charged with murder and kidnapping in an Iraqi man’s slaying in April in Hamdania. They’re awaiting trial at Camp Pendleton, Calif.

The Brockton vets say they respect the Judge Advocate General Corps, the legal arm of the military, but fear young officers won’t provide the best defense, especially against higher-ranking experienced prosecutors.

“I try more cases in a month than some guys try in their careers,” Charles W. Gittins, a civilian lawyer who specializes in defending servicemen, said of appointed attorneys.

The public affairs office at JAG headquarters did not respond to calls. The Marine Corps Forces Central Command declined to comment.

Gittins defended Marine 2nd Lt. Ilario Pantano, who was cleared last year of murder in the deaths of two Iraqi civilians in April 2004. Pantano didn’t deny shooting the men, but said he acted in self-defense.

The case spurred Pantano’s mother, Merry Pantano of New York, to create a fund called Defend the Defenders, which remains active by raising and distributing money to families of accused servicemen to pay for legal costs.

“If you get to trial, you’re looking at a $100,000 defense,” said Gittins, himself a former judge advocate.

Larry Hutchins of Plymouth - whose son, a Marine, is among eight servicemen accused in the shooting death of an Iraqi - expects legal fees could be $75,000. The former telephone company repairman now works in the maintenance department of a bus line has hired a civilian criminal defense attorney.

“He’s my son. If it comes to remortgaging, or getting loans, we’ll do whatever we have to do,” he said.

His son, Marine Sgt. Lawrence G. Hutchins III, a 2002 Plymouth South High School graduate, was charged in the April 26 shooting death of 52-year-old Hashim Ibrahim Awad in Hamdania, west of Baghdad. Defense attorneys have questioned the credibility of the Iraqis who reported the killing. He’s also been charged with assault of three Iraqis in Hamdania for an incident two weeks before Awad’s slaying.

Larry Hutchins says his telephone bills alone are $900 per month, and airline tickets and transportation to Camp Pendleton to see his son cost thousands of dollars.

“Obviously, there was an incident, and obviously there was a man killed,” Larry Hutchins said. “But this is war. My son is a sergeant. He was a squad leader. He wasn’t trained to make friends, he was trained to fight. I believe they were doing their job.”

The Marine’s aunt, Patricia Riddell, organized an event that raised $20,000 for her Hutchins’ legal defense. She said some in the community were skeptical when she approached them selling raffle tickets.

“We felt like we had to proclaim his innocence,” she said, recalling doubting looks. “People don’t think it’s right to kill other people. They don’t look at it as something that happened in war. People look at it in the paper like it’s a random shooting in Boston.”

There are eight Purple Hearts among the eight Brockton-area men - seven of whom are former Marines who served in Vietnam - who created the “Military Combat Defense Fund.”

Robert Gale, Brockton’s veterans services director, said none had been accused of or charged with crimes. But the 59-year-old former helicopter machine-gunner in Vietnam and his friends still have concerns about today’s troops.

“We just feel very concerned that young men and young women are going to be used as political footballs,” said Gale. “People are so hot, so adamant about their positions politically; they don’t care about the young men or young women who are possibly charged with a war crime.”

The rules for the fund, which has a balance of about $6,000 in early October ahead of a planned fundraiser, are simple: It requires support from two-thirds to disburse funds, it must be used for the legal defense of U.S. military personnel charged in violent crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan, but it cannot be used in cases involving crimes against Americans or coalition forces.

Retired Marine Maj. Herbert W. Donahue Jr. started the “Warrior Fund” in June because he felt the “Pendleton 8” were being treated “worse than the detainees in Gitmo.” About $20,000 has been raised, and three Pendleton families have petitioned for donations, said Donahue, who lives in Greensboro, N.C.

Families of the eight accused servicemen have launched their own fundraising and publicity campaigns, as well. Many have Web sites.

A stated concern among defense fund organizers is politics getting in the way of justice. But Gary D. Solis, a former Marine Corps prosecutor and judge advocate, says that’s not the reality.

“There’s no entree for politics in a military prosecution,” said Solis, who teaches law of war at Georgetown University Law Center. “Yeah, I read the newspapers, but military prosecutors don’t make charging decisions based on Time magazine stories.” There were 27 convictions of Marines for homicide of Vietnamese noncombatants, and 95 homicide convictions of soldiers, said Solis. No one tracked convictions of lesser crimes from Vietnam, and that there’s no record of the number of acquittals, he said.

Only one of five troops charged in the My Lai massacre was convicted. The March 1968 incident left some 500 Vietnamese villagers dead. Army Lt. William Calley Jr. was sentenced to life in prison, and his sentence was reduced by President Nixon. Calley served three years of house arrest.

Solis said there were fundraisers to pay for lawyers for Calley, who he described as “a callous calculating murderer.” Vietnam also had its share of high-powered defense lawyers. F. Lee Bailey successfully defended Army Capt. Ernest Medina in the My Lai incident. Many volunteered to represent accused troops, Solis said, because they opposed the war and saw the servicemen as victims.

Lt. Col. Todd Vician, a Defense Department spokesman, said there is no available number of charges brought against Armed Forces members in Iraq and Afghanistan.

There have been at least 14 convictions of U.S. servicemen since 2003 on charges resulting from the deaths of Iraqis, according to information compiled in June by The Associated Press News and Information Research Center. The stiffest prison sentence was 25 years.

Back in Brockton, Barnes says he has extra incentive to watch out for troops. His son, a Marine, recently started his third tour in Iraq.

“What happens in war you just don’t know,” said the 58-year-old retired radio reporter who suffered burns and shrapnel wounds in Hue City in February 1968 during the Tet Offensive. “There may be more incidents of people acting out with less judgment than ought to be.”

Source: http://www.marinecorpstimes.com/stor...25-2162683.php