Military officials say a survey of U.S. troops and their families is finding that a majority don’t care whether gays are allowed to serve openly and think “don’t ask, don’t tell” could be done away with.

SFExaminer.com reports:

A Fort Stewart soldier charged with killing two members of his Army unit in 2008 is due back in court for a hearing on whether the military should pay for his defense team to travel to Iraq. . . . to interview Iraqi witnesses and investigated the crime scene. Prosecutors have said the trip would be unnecessary.

I hope the trial counsel is not saying the trip’s unnecessary because the CID did such a great job. Got one now where the CID has thoroughly spoiled the evidence through mishandling.

MYNorthwest reports (this is Ramrod Five related):

There is mounting evidence some of the soldiers might have been pressured into committing the crimes, according to attorney Eric Montalvo. A Gulf War veteran, Montalvo represents another one of the accused killers, Adam Winfield. Montalvo claims there was a clear ringleader in the group: Staff Sergeant Calvin Gibbs, who out-ranked the others in their unit in Afghanistan.

Seems like there’s a lot of finger pointing at SSgt Gibbs, characterized by the Winfield defense

“[I]n a serial killer, category.”

The Beverly Hills Courier reports on another “Veteran’s Court.”

Criminal cases against military veterans charged with nonviolent felonies will start to be heard by a Los Angeles Superior Court judge today. The pilot program is meant to give a second chance to veterans who may have gotten into trouble due to conditions related to their service, such as post-traumatic stress syndrome, brain injuries and other mental conditions. Orange County has a similar program, which mirrors other veteran courts that have sprung up across the nation.

FayObserver.com reports:

A military judge has agreed to delay the court-martial of a Fort Bragg soldier accused in a series of rapes and break-ins on post and in Cumberland and Hoke counties, officials said. The court-martial of Spc. Aaron M. Pernell, 23, of Tulsa, Okla., had been scheduled to start Sept. 27, according to court dockets. Instead, a pre-trial hearing is scheduled for that day before military judge Col. Gary Brockington. A spokesman for the 82nd Airborne Division said Pernell’s lawyers requested the continuance. The spokesman also said Brockington denied a request to move the trial to another military base.

DADT: Off topic, but on topic for military justice developments.

AllHeadlineNews.com reports:

The trial of a woman discharged from the Air Force for her sexual orientation begins Monday, less than a week after a federal court declared as unconstitutional the military’s ban against gays serving openly. The case of former Maj. Margaret Witt will begin proceedings before a federal district court in Tacoma. The lawsuit was originally dismissed but a federal appeals court returned it to the district court in 2008, saying the Air Force had to prove the dismissal was crucial to the “good order, morale and discipline” of personnel in Witt’s unit.

The Daily Weekly reports:

Someday, we’re all going to look back at this whole hunting-and-trapping-the-gays-out-of-the-military thing and just laugh. Or cry. Or both. But until that hypothetical enlightened age, there’s Major Margaret Witt, a decorated 19-year veteran of the Air Force whose lawsuit may help bring an end to “Don’t ask, don’t tell.” In 2004, the husband of a woman Witt was dating sent a note to the Air Force outing her as a lesbian. She would eventually be discharged three years later. Witt sued, and now she finds herself in U.S. District Court in Tacoma with a chance to argue for her reinstatement. An argument that will center on whether or not her status as a lesbian “hurt morale and unit cohesion.” A flight nurse at McChord, Witt was literally the Air Force’s poster child, as her face was used on the Nurse Corp’s promotional fliers. And a year before getting the boot, Witt received her second medal for saving the life of a Defense Department employee on a flight from Bahrain.

This New York Times piece reports:

Major Witt’s lawyers say former colleagues will testify that she was an effective leader and that her discharge, not her presence, hurt morale in her Reserves unit, the 446th Aeromedical Evacuation Squadron. Several of the witnesses say they suspected she was a lesbian but did not mind serving alongside her.

Tomorrow, NMCCA will hear oral argument in United States v. Hayes:

I. WHETHER THE MILITARY JUDGE’S COMMENTS ON THE RECORD AND DURING THE “BRIDGING THE GAP” DISCUSSIONS WITH COUNSEL REFLECT AN ACTUAL BIAS AGAINST THE APPELLANT’S SEXUAL ORIENTATION, RESULTING IN THE MILITARY JUDGE’S DISQUALIFICATION FROM PRESIDING OVER APPELLANT’S COURT-MARTIAL? II. WHETHER THE MILITARY JUDGE’S COMMENTS ON THE RECORD AND DURING THE “BRIDGING THE GAP” DISCUSSIONS WITH COUNSEL CREATED AN APPEARANCE OF BIAS AGAINST THE APPELLANT’S SEXUAL ORIENTATION, RESULTING IN THE MILITARY JUDGE’S DISQUALIFICATION FROM PRESIDING OVER APPELLANT’S COURT-MARTIAL?

Here is a link to the original NMCCA decision.

A former command sergeant major at Walter Reed Army Medical Center fired for allegedly faking his record and wearing unauthorized awards and decorations faces military discipline for a series of bold deceptions that span several years and multiple commands, according to the charges against him.

World News Daily has a piece on LTC Lakin’s OER issue. The piece seems to accept without question or fact-check the allegation that the, “Army convicted me without trial.” It would seem a proper journalistic analysis would review the actual report (still publically unavailable) and review in comparison to AR 623-3 .

An Army officer who has chosen to stake his career on a demand that Barack Obama document his eligibility to be president is charging that the Army has convicted him without a trial.

The National Law Journal has a short piece on the litigation in California by the Log Cabin Republicans challenging the DADT. Maybe the case will be resolved on a standing issue vice the merits.

Finally, Freeborne continued to assert that the Log Cabin Republicans lacked standing to pursue the claim. “Mr. Woods gave short shrift to the subject for obvious reasons: Log Cabin cannot identify a single member who has the right to challenge the policy in his or her own right,” Freeborne said. Neither of the individuals claiming to be Log Cabin Republican members has identified himself as a Republican, he said, and both failed to pay dues. During trial, Woods introduced several officers of Log Cabin Republican who vouched for their membership.

Reversing an earlier decision, the Air Force said Monday it intends to discharge a lesbian Air Force officer who had remained in the military despite openly declaring her homosexuality. An Air Force general earlier this year concluded that Lt. Robin R. Chaurasiya should not be discharged, saying she had declared her sexual orientation for the purpose of avoiding military service. “I am kind of heartbroken,” Chaurasiya said. “I felt my situation was hinting at changes. I really thought I would be able to lead the way for a more equal military.”

On 2 April Chicago Tribune reported.

Lt. Robin R. Chaurasiya … is a lesbian, and in a civil union with another woman. Her commander at Scott Air Force Base in Illinois, Lt. Gen. Robert R. Allardice, could have discharged her under the Pentagon’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy. Instead, he determined in February that she should remain in the Air Force because she acknowledged her sexual orientation for the purpose of “avoiding and terminating military service.”

Chaurasiya says that is not true. But the general’s reasoning has the flavor of a Catch-22: If you admit to being homosexual you can be discharged from the military, but if you admit it for the purposes of being discharged you won’t be.

Queerty has part of the correspondence.