Ehren Watada, the first officer to publicly refuse to serve in the illegal Iraq War (June, 2006), cannot be shoved into a second court-martial. That's what Judge Benjamin Settle, US District Judge, ruled Thursday.
The military bungled their court-martial in February. They called a "mistrial" over defense objections. The thinking appears to have been, "If the prosecution screws up, we can just start over."
But there's a thing called the Fifth Amendment in a document known as the Constitution and it forbids double-jeopardy.
The US military, whose service members take an oath to uphold the Constitution, wanted to argue that double-jeopary didn't apply to them.
Apparently, the US military is supposed to be extra-Constitutional.
That and other arguments worked in military courts. But when civilian Judge Settle got the appeal, he issued two stays while he reviewed the briefs and the applicable law.
On Thursday, he informed the military that they were not above the Constitution.
"The same Fifth Amendment protections," Settle found, "are in place for military service members as are afforded to civilians. There is a strong public interest in maintaining these rights inviolate."
Christian Hill (The Olympian) reported:
He also found that the granting of a preliminary injunction is necessary in part because Watada will "probably prevail on the merits" of his case, his ruling said.
Settle reached that conclusion largely because of what he said was the abuse of discretion by Lt. Col. John Head, the military judge who presided in Watada's first court-martial, in rejecting a so-called stipulation of fact agreed upon by the government and defense that led to the mistrial, the ruling shows.
Though not the end of the battle, this is a huge victory for Ehren Watada and for the Constitution.
If your favored outlet didn't note the finding, you need to ask them why that is?
