msmith198025
December 8th, 2009, 05:24 PM
http://biggovernment.com/2009/12/08/101st-airborne-officer-serving-20-year-sentence-after-testimony-of-expert-witness-ignored/
On July 31, 2008, Lieutenant Behenna was charged with the premeditated murder of Ali Mansur, a known Al-Qaeda operative operating in the area of Albu Toma, north of Baghdad. Seven months later, the 26 -year-old leader of the 18-member Delta Company, 5th platoon of the Army 101st Airborne Infantry Division, was sentenced to 25 years confinement at Fort Leavenworth after being convicted by a military court-martial panel of unpremeditated murder in violation of Article 118 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice.
Though a judge later reduced his sentence to 20 years, the Edmond, Okla., native remains confined at the U.S. Army Garrison in the middle of Kansas, largely due to the fact that a forensics expert whose testimony likely would have exonerated him was never allowed to be heard during the court-martial.
That forensics expert, Dr. Herbert Leon MacDonell, is director of the Laboratory of Forensic Science in Corning, N.Y. During a career spanning five decades, he’s been involved in such high-profile cases as the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy, Sen. Robert F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr., and the 1994 double-murder case involving O.J. Simpson. In this case, he appears to harbor strong feelings about the evidence — the kind of feelings that might lead anyone who doesn’t earn an income as an expert witness to say he believes Lieutenant Behenna is innocent.
Read the rest at the link. :(
On July 31, 2008, Lieutenant Behenna was charged with the premeditated murder of Ali Mansur, a known Al-Qaeda operative operating in the area of Albu Toma, north of Baghdad. Seven months later, the 26 -year-old leader of the 18-member Delta Company, 5th platoon of the Army 101st Airborne Infantry Division, was sentenced to 25 years confinement at Fort Leavenworth after being convicted by a military court-martial panel of unpremeditated murder in violation of Article 118 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice.
Though a judge later reduced his sentence to 20 years, the Edmond, Okla., native remains confined at the U.S. Army Garrison in the middle of Kansas, largely due to the fact that a forensics expert whose testimony likely would have exonerated him was never allowed to be heard during the court-martial.
That forensics expert, Dr. Herbert Leon MacDonell, is director of the Laboratory of Forensic Science in Corning, N.Y. During a career spanning five decades, he’s been involved in such high-profile cases as the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy, Sen. Robert F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr., and the 1994 double-murder case involving O.J. Simpson. In this case, he appears to harbor strong feelings about the evidence — the kind of feelings that might lead anyone who doesn’t earn an income as an expert witness to say he believes Lieutenant Behenna is innocent.
Read the rest at the link. :(