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Did Navy secretary overstep his role in military murder case?
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2012/11/13/174545/did-navy-secretary-overstep-his.html#storylink=cpyDid Navy secretary overstep his role in military murder case?
By Michael Doyle | McClatchy Newspapers
Posted on Tuesday, November 13, 2012
WASHINGTON — A California-based Marine convicted of wartime murder and a former Mississippi governor who’s now atop the U.S. Navy indirectly dueled Tuesday before the nation’s highest military appeals court in an important clash over when superiors bend military justice.
Neither Marine Pvt. Lawrence Hutchins III nor Navy Secretary Ray Mabus was present late Tuesday morning when the Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces considered the biggest unlawful-command-influence case in years. Hutchins is in a military prison, serving an 11-year sentence. Mabus was busy running the $150 billion-a-year Department of the Navy.
Their respective advocates, though, verbally clashed before a five-member court whose judges sounded somewhat sympathetic to Hutchins but also divided over what military-justice rules may apply to a civilian such as Mabus.
“This case,” said Hutchins’ attorney, Marine Corps Reserves Maj. S. Babu Kaza, “has been made radioactive by the secretary of the Navy.”