1. Contemporaneous video’s and photos can provide vital evidence for both sides.

Nixon said he remembered Hasan because of “his stature and just how he composed himself — stoic.”

A video of this may have aided both sides. Was he stoic, or was that something else which might be relevant to a forensic health examiner. The demeanor certainly sounds damning. But could it be evidence or reflective of some other mental health disease or defect. For cases that happen on base or at a party or other event there is the potential for video and still photo evidence. Generally law enforcement doesn’t bother to collect it in most cases. As a defense counsel I’ve been able to use these contemporaneous photos to good effect. Defense counsel should always ask witnesses if there were photographs taken at an event. For example in the standard sexual assault case the event often starts at a party or a club. Digital cameras are ubiquitous and party-goers often take pictures. Those pictures may show the complaining witness or the accused at various times during the evening. If the issue is incapacitation, the complaining witness’ demeanor and actions, especially later in the evening, may be relevant. Or perhaps there’s a picture of the complaining witness kissing and cuddling with the accused on the couch, an event she denies, because it goes to a mistake or consent defense.

2. Eyewitness testimony is not as reliable as we believe. This is not a new topic. But we can see how eyewitnesses in stressful situations may not have an accurate, complete, or same memory of events. This raises a concern about post-event interviews of witnesses. The concern is how witnesses who are improperly interviewed may alter their memory to conform to facts learned from others. This is not necessarily deliberate but a psychological effect of being interviewed together with other witnesses or having their statement challenged by the investigator or being shown other statements by the investigator. There’s plenty of research on this. But here are the points from the AP article by Brown & Cracyk.

They have given similar accounts of how the rampage began, saying Hasan fired into a crowded waiting area and then walked around the building, shooting people as they hid under chairs and tables, pausing only to reload.

But have they? Later in the article the writers tell us that:

Only one witness has testified he saw two weapons. Others have said they saw one weapon, but descriptions about the gun have varied.

News reports on this have also varied. A minor difference you say. Maybe.

I’m not convinced as is Mr. McCarthy that this was a deliberate cover-up by the Army. Rather a silly mistake. That Soldier should have been ordered to turn over his cellphone as potential evidence. Once that is done the evidence can be put on an ECD by CID and retained as evidence. Sure the Soldier will be inconvenienced for a short while. But there are very good software programs and tools available to forensic computer examiners to quickly retrieve and preserve such “computer” evidence from the cellphone sim-card or SD card.

A U.S. Coast Guard investigating officer has found no legal justification for the deadly collision of a Coast Guard boat with a smaller vessel in San Diego Bay that killed an 8-year-old boy, the Los Angeles Times reported Monday.

San Diego 6 reports:

[The] investigating officer has rejected claims by three crew members that mechanical defects, poor training and lax leadership were responsible for a boat collision on San Diego Bay that killed an 8-year-old Rancho Penasquitos boy, according to an online report.

Also, it appears the report has been leaked because the Coast Guard PAO says it has not been publicly released; which makes sense.

The NASA astronaut who made international headlines after attacking a romantic rival with pepper spray at the Orlando International Airport in 2007 spent Thursday in a military courtroom at Naval Air Station Jacksonville. The government is asking a Navy review board to recommend discharging Captain Lisa Nowak and reduce her rank and pay grade.

AP reports that:

Federal safety investigators revealed Wednesday that crew members aboard two Coast Guard boats involved in collisions in California and South Carolina last year were using wireless devices for conversation or text messaging unrelated to vessel operations. The collisions killed one person and injured 10.

Fayetteville Observer have a short piece on Hennis:

Lawyers handling Timothy Hennis’ federal appeal will have additional time to file documents on whether the Army had jurisdiction to convict him of three murders.

From time to time a client or the family members want to know how the military can prosecute someone for civilian charges. It happens.

Military.com reports:

Once the civilian justice system is done with three North Georgia Soldiers accused of throwing military explosives at a crowd, they may still have to answer to the military.

And here’s a little more detail from the Dahlonega Nugget:

Three local men enlisted in the U.S. Army at Camp Frank D. Merrill in Dahlonega are facing a slew of felony charges, including domestic terrorism, after allegedly tossing explosive devices into a crowd of people over the weekend. No one was injured in the random attack, which occurred in the Ingles parking lot near the busy intersection of highways 400 and 53 in Dawsonville.

Military.com also reports:

Usually, the military sends press releases to the hometown newspapers of a new enlistee. But in an unusual step, the Air Force is preparing to issue a press release aimed at the national media announcing that someone has actually not joined up. The move was prompted by an Aug. 3 report in the New York Daily News that Melissa Weber of Long Island, a former teacher convicted last year of having sex with a 14-year-old student, had joined the Air Force to be trained as a nurse.