Marine says he will appeal conviction for prisoner abuse
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Jeff and Sharon Sting say their son was coerced into an admission of guilt and was convicted in a rush to judgment because of the scandals.
( THE BLADE/ALLAN DETRICH )
By JENNIFER FEEHAN
BLADE STAFF WRITER
BRADNER, Ohio - Painting a picture of a young man who was coerced into admitting to crimes he didn't commit, the family of Pfc. Andrew Sting said yesterday that he will appeal his conviction for abusing an Iraqi prisoner.
Nearly four weeks after Sting used live wires attached to a power converter to shock a prisoner he was guarding, Sharon Sting said her stepson was interrogated without witnesses, an attorney, or even being read his rights. She said he was forced to sign a written statement against his will - again, without legal counsel.
Finally, when he was appointed a defense attorney from the Judge Advocate General Corps, his counsel urged him to waive his right to an Article 32 hearing - similar to a grand jury proceeding in civilian courts - and sign a plea bargain agreeing to a year in prison and a bad-conduct discharge.
He was told that if he took the deal and agreed to testify against others involved in the case, he would avoid the possibility of 5 to 15 years behind bars.
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"He had 30 minutes to decide to sign," Mrs. Sting said, describing her stepson a trusting 19-year-old. "The Marine Corps has meant the world to Andrew. The Marine Corps was his chance for a bright future."
Sporting buttons with their son's picture pinned to their shirts, Jeff and Sharon Sting spoke with reporters outside their Bradner home yesterday. American flags dotted their front yard.
Toledo attorney Thomas Sobecki, who appeared with the couple, said the stiff charges and penalties slapped on Sting were wrong for four reasons:
He was trained as an infantryman, not a prison guard.
He was following a sergeant's order when he shocked the prisoner.
The Marines' heavy-handedness was a reaction to the Army prisoner-abuse scandal.
The case was rushed from charges to court-martial in one week - "an extraordinarily short time."
Mr. Sobecki said short of getting the conviction overturned or gaining a trial for Sting through a military appellate court, the family would file a petition for clemency with the Marine Corps.
"When you enter a guilty plea, it's awfully hard to be successful on appeal," Mr. Sobecki said. "We would need to show he was pressured unduly to enter into this plea bargain, that he did not enter into this voluntarily."
Still, a former Army JAG attorney said Sting may have a case to make if he can show his legal counsel was inadequate or that either his attorney or the military judge did not fully explain his rights to him.
Al Lance, a former Wood County resident and two-term Idaho attorney general, said in his experience the only reason a defendant would waive his right to an Article 32 investigation would be if he was offered an exceptionally good plea bargain.
"Unless you got a pretty good deal out front, advising a client to waive his Article 32 hearing was tantamount to malpractice," Mr. Lance said.
Mr. Sobecki, who said he was "outraged" by the Marines' actions, said Sting was initially reprimanded for the incident, but four weeks later - just after the Army's prison abuse scandal was exposed - Sting was told he would be charged and court-martialed.
Ultimately, the charges were presented at a general court-martial, a level of hearing reserved for the most serious offenses. It all happened within one week.
Mr. Sobecki, a colonel in the U.S. Army Reserves JAG, said in his experience a case like Sting's would have taken "a couple months at the minimum."
Mr. Lance agreed that such cases easily took six to eight weeks. He also agreed that Sting may have been a political scapegoat.
"My hunch on this one is, and it's only speculation, that when the stories started to break and people started to get uncomfortable and a slap on the wrist was a response they would have to answer for - things started to snowball," he said.
Capt. Shawn Turner, a Pentagon spokesman, said the case moved quickly only because of decisions made on both sides, including Sting's decisions to waive the Article 32 hearing and trial.
"When an investigation is complete and some culpability is found, the military believes in dealing with infractions of the Uniform Code of Military Justice very directly, very rapidly, very succinctly," Captain Turner said. "Any talk of this being related to the other prisoner-abuse incidents is just conjecture. This was a separate incident, and it was dealt with in the same way any other incident of this type would've been dealt with."
Mr. Sting questioned why the Marines just made his son's case public.
"Was that intentional? Were they trying to accomplish something?" he asked.
Mr. Sting said his own stint in the Marines from 1980 to 1985 tells him that private first-class enlisted men don't decide to apply electric shock to a prisoner on their own, nor can inexperienced Marines discern a lawful order from an unlawful one.
"In boot camp it's really instilled in Marines ... that when you're given an order, for instance if it's to jump, you jump and they tell you how high," he said.
Contact Jennifer Feehan at:
[email protected]
or 419-353-5972.