Tuesday, December 14, 2010

LATEST ON LAKIN COURT-MARTIAL...from obamareleaseyourrecords.com

3:15 - Snippet via CAAFlog(anti-Lakin blog); ...Judge Lind found his guilty pleas to be provident and accepted them. The defense then moved to dismiss the dereliction of duty spec as an unreasonable multiplication of charges in light of the accused’s guilty plea to Specification 3. The prosecution did not oppose the motion, and Judge Lind granted it. She then entered guilty findings on Specifications 1-3 of Charge II and on Charge II itself. LTC Lakin elected to be tried by a panel of officers. The defense asked the judge to advise the members that LTC Lakin had pled guilty to violating lawful orders, and that his pleas were accepted. Neither side attempted to use voir dire to explore their theory of the case. Of the ten officers named to the court by the convening authority, nine had heard about the case; one expressed an opinion negative to the accused, and the judge granted a challenge for cause for that member. The prosecution did not exercise any peremptory challenges; the defense challenged one member, leaving eight. All are O-6s. ...The state of play now is as follows: trial will begin at 1500 hours with opening statements on the missing movement offense. Source.

3:33 - Snippets via Military.com; Lakin drew a distinction between the charge he pleaded guilty to -- failing to report for duty -- and the charge of missing movement by skipping the flight to Fort Campbell. Lakin refused to deploy to Afghanistan this summer because he maintains that if Obama is not legally eligible to be commander-in-chief and therefore any orders he issues would be unlawful. ...Whether or not Lakin is convicted on the one remaining charge, he still faces a maximum of 18 months in jail, separation from the Army, and loss of all pay and allowances. One of the four counts of disobeying orders was subsequently dismissed by the court because the same charge is incorporated into one of the other counts. Had the conviction remained he would be looking at an additional six months confinement. Lakin admitted he disobeyed orders to report to superior officers. "But my orders to Fort Campbell were for the purposes of deployment," he said, arguing since those deployment orders were illegitimate, he was justified in not following them. ... The birther cause did make it into discussion, however, as Lakin spent more than an hour answering Lind's questions about his decision to plead guilty to failing to report for duty. Lakin spoke in low tones throughout the morning session, sometimes with long pauses before answering a question or pausing mid-sentence. Around the time he refused orders to meet with several superiors, he said, he was dealing with advice from legal counsel and was wrestling with his own conscience and personal beliefs. ...Though the court-martial is not going to weigh Lakin's arguments about Obama, the colonel's brother said Lakin "is looking forward to making a statement at the end of the trial." -Source.

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