SecNav: No clemency in Iraqi murder plot - Military News | News From Afghanistan, Iraq And Around The World - Military Times

SecNav: No clemency in Iraqi murder plot

OCEANSIDE, Calif. — The Navy’s top civilian on Tuesday rejected a clemency request from a Marine infantry squad leader convicted of killing an Iraqi man in 2006, a case that drew two jury convictions and five guilty pleas from seven other members of his squad.

Navy Secretary Ray Mabus said he believes that Pvt. Lawrence G. Hutchins III, a former sergeant sentenced to 11 years in confinement, was the ringleader in the premeditated murder plot and attempted cover-up, and that he should complete the full sentence.

“I thought that it was a sentence commensurate with the crime,” Mabus said in a phone interview. He rejected claims that Hutchins and fellow members of his squad acted “in the fog of war” when they snatched an Iraqi man from his home in the village of Hamdaniya and executed him.

A senior Marine Corps commander already reduced Hutchins’ sentence from the jury-imposed 15 years, which Mabus said “shows greatly substantial clemency already.”

Additionally, Mabus ordered the administrative separation of three junior Marines and a Navy corpsman who had pleaded guilty to conspiracy and obstruction of justice but have remained on active duty.

He also issued a letter of censure to 1st Lt. Nathan Phan, their platoon commander at the time of the killing. Mabus directed Phan, an inactive reservist in the Individual Ready Reserve, to “show cause” and explain why he should be retained by the Corps.

A climate of violence

Much of the Hamdaniya case centered on Hutchins, whose squad was assigned to Kilo Company, 3rd Battalion, 5th Marines. He devised the plot to kill an insurgent suspected of planting roadside bombs, and led his squad to the bomb planter’s house in the early hours of April 26, 2006.

But the bomb planter wasn’t there. Four members of the unit snatched another man from the home and bound him with duct tape before all eight men dragged him to a nearby road and shot him dead beside a freshly-dug hole.

Initially, the Marines told their command that the 52-year-old man they killed, later identified as a retired Iraqi policeman, died during a firefight after they caught him prepping the hole for a roadside bomb. But it was a lie.

All eight men were eventually taken into custody while still in Iraq. They were then brought home to Camp Pendleton, Calif., in May 2006 and charged.

At Hutchins’ general court-martial in 2007, a military jury at Camp Pendleton convicted him of unpremeditated murder and conspiracy to commit murder, issuing the 15-year sentence along with a dishonorable discharge. Hutchins appealed for clemency from the convening authority, and then-Lt. Gen. James Mattis reduced the sentence to 11 years.

Hutchins has been held at the Camp Pendleton brig during his recent appellate hearings but is expected to be returned to U.S. Disciplinary Barracks at Fort Leavenworth, Kan. He will be eligible for parole in January.

Mabus reviewed transcripts and trial records in each of the eight Hamdaniya prosecutions, as well as the investigation into allegations that Phan mistreated Iraqi detainees — charges unrelated to the murder and ultimately dismissed. Phan later received nonjudicial punishment.

Mabus said the lieutenant’s command climate, however, indirectly influenced Hutchins’ actions and those of the others in the squad.

“I do think he did foster a climate of not obeying superiors’ orders, of violence toward Iraqis and that he actually set the stage for this,” Mabus said. “Leaders ought to be accountable.”

‘Completely planned’

Mabus said he was surprised to learn that the killing was “so completely premeditated, that it was not in the heat of battle, that not only was the action planned but the cover-up was planned, and that they picked somebody at random, just because he happened to be in a house that was convenient. He was murdered.”

“It wasn’t somebody coming apart under pressure. It wasn’t in the middle of action, in the middle of battle,” the Navy secretary said. “It was completely planned and completely executed. … That was disconcerting.”

Hutchins’ two team leaders — former Cpls. Trent D. Thomas and Marshall Magincalda — were convicted by military juries of conspiracy and kidnapping, and busted down to private. But the juries gave them no additional jail time.

Magincalda left the Corps at the end of his enlistment contract and received an honorable discharge. Trent’s jury gave him a bad-conduct discharge, but he remains on unpaid leave while his case is appealed.

Mabus said he was “surprised” to learn that four others — Pvts. Tyler A. Jackson, Jerry E. Shumate, Jr. and John J. Jodka, and Navy corpsman Melson J. Bacos — were still on active duty, adding that he believes their actions “weren’t keeping with the values of the Navy and the Marine Corps.”

None of the four men’s pretrial agreements with prosecutors included specific discharges.

“I thought that by leaving them on active duty, it degraded the actions of tens of thousands of other Marines and sailors who served … and didn’t act this way.”

Another junior Marine, former Lance Cpl. Robert Pennington, pleaded guilty to conspiracy and kidnapping, and, under a plea agreement, received eight years of confinement. Mattis later commuted the sentence, and Pennington left the Corps May 13 with a bad-conduct discharge.

The eight enlisted men — known locally as “the Pendleton 8” — were charged just weeks after members of another Camp Pendleton battalion were accused of killing Iraqi civilians in Hadithah. The Hamdaniya squad’s supporters claimed they were unfairly singled out for prosecution.

Mabus dismissed that notion, saying he looked at each case “on its own merits.”

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