Up periscope

The Press Enterprise reports: A military hearing over whether three Hawaii-based Marines should go to trial for alleged hazing of a squad member who later killed himself in Afghanistan concluded Friday and a commander will now make a final determination. Looks like some interesting litigation.

Naval Criminal Investigative Service agents didn’t read the Marines their rights when they took statements from the men about Lew’s death. The attorneys told Gardner they would object to the use of the statements in a court martial as a result. NCIS agents told the hearing they didn’t read the Marines their rights because at the time the men were witnesses and not suspects.

Reports also in Mercury News and Sacramento Bee. All are based on an AP report.

The Acorn reports on a perennial favorite of stage and screen: The military fights its most brutal battles not in the field but in a courtroom in Aaron Sorkin’s gripping drama “A Few Good Men,” playing at the High Street Arts Center in Moorpark.

Stars & Stripes reports on the Wickware court-martial: Five months after he took his first breath, Cordale Wickware’s world devolved into a “living hell,” prosecutors and defense attorneys said Friday during opening arguments in the court-martial of Airman 1st Class Horace Wickware, who is on trial in the death of his son.

Defense attorneys painted a different picture, implying that it was the infant’s mother, Jennifer Wickware, who physically abused him. She was convicted in May in German court of maltreatment, negligence with lethal consequences and failing to adequately care for her son. She was sentenced to five years in jail.

Grand Forks AFB reports some Article 15, UCMJ, punishments from the “The Judge’s Bench.” And along similar lines the ROK Drop reports court-martial results (3xSCM and 1xSPCM).

Various outlets are reporting the apprehension and pretrial confinement of a Navy Corpsman for alleged threats to bomb a local school near Camp Pendleton, CA. The San Clemente Patch; Navy Times.

Of course many media outlets are picking up on United States v. Lee and the issue of Marine Corps defense counsel, here is the Kansas City Star. McClatchey the outlet paying quite a bit of attention to military “justice” over the last months notes: The Marine Corps, as part of a series of changes directed by its top legal officer, Maj. Gen. Vaughn Ary, has drafted new rules to prohibit simultaneous defense and prosecution service except for tightly controlled exceptions. The proposed new rules are under internal review and will be finalized soon.

Navy Times reports: The Drug Enforcement Administration is invoking an emergency authority temporarily banning the designer drug mephedrone, known as “bath salts” or “plant food.” What’s interesting is that people are already using real bath salts as fake cocaine. I believe I posted that earlier this year based on testimony from druggie witnesses and an expert in substance abuse.

Outside the Wire (a spin off from Military Times) reports: [A] soldier at Redstone Arsenal, Ala., was sent to the disciplinary barracks at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., after he was court-martialed for knowingly spreading HIV. He was sentenced to a dishonorable discharge and 30 months after being found guilty of violating his superior’s command and multiple counts of assault, which refers to the unprotected sexual contact.

Air Force Times reports on an E-5 not fit for service. An Air Force staff sergeant who was convicted of cheating on a physical fitness test has been demoted and sentenced to 14 days of hard labor without confinement.