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A military judge has bucked a two-star general by throwing out a sexual assault case against a sergeant at Patrick Air Force Base, Florida.

 

I wasn't sure if this belongs in the "what's right," "what's wrong" or the "WTF" threads.  I'm not saying he's innocent, I really don't know the facts of the case.  But damn, this paints a bad picture of how overboard leaders have gone to protect their asses from the Gillibrands of the world.  God help anyone who simply has a sexual assault accusation made against them in this military.  < 800 days to go!

 

Some gems from the article...

In a 13-page decision, Col. Cohen chastised Gen. Whiting for refusing to require the women who accused Sgt. Snyder of assault to turn over their social media communications and devices sought by defense attorneys. The prosecution issued subpoenas, but Gen. Whiting ordered lawyers not to enforce them.

 

Seems legit...

 

Maj. Cody Chiles, 14th Air Force spokesman, said in a statement to The Washington Times that the force “is committed to providing the maximum support possible to all victims of sexual assault while ensuring due process” and defended the general’s actions as Defense Department policy on handling sex assault victims.

 

But to hell with supporting the possibly wrongly accused!  Be sure his clearance is revoked, he is pulled from his work area and/or otherwise alienated!

 

“In this case, Maj. Gen. Whiting supported issuing subpoenas to seek to retrieve all relevant information in the case. However, DoD policy is to generally honor the wishes of a victim regarding participation or non-participation in a prosecution. Seizing this evidence without the victims’ consent would have been inconsistent with this policy,” Maj. Chiles said.

 

Even if it means denying the accused the right to a fair trail.  If he didn't do it, he's probably a rapist in waiting anyway...right?

 

 

Aaron G. Meyer, Sgt. Snyder’s civilian defense attorney

 

Youngins...take note.  This is the smartest thing this guy ever did.  

 

 

Mr. Meyer said that already-obtained social media postings show that the three women formed an alliance and conspired to bring trumped-up charges against Sgt. Snyder after he ended his relationships with them. He said they planned to celebrate together after they had destroyed the airman.

 

Probably not worthing exploring for this case...

 

The following seems like the action of a sane/stable person.  We should definitely NOT let them subpoena her SM, you know...to protect "the victim..."

 

 

Mr. Meyer said one jilted accuser purchased hard-to-trace burner phones and used them to create fake profiles on dating apps to try to entice Sgt. Snyder.

The alleged victim “started to use ‘up to 80’ [her testimony on the record in December] different profiles, some her own, most aliases and imaginary friends, to contact any and every suspected ex-girlfriend, love interest, family member, even women who ‘liked his photos’ on social media. If they responded, she would detail sexual acts, send naked photos, and past text screenshots, saying he was cheating on them, had just been diagnosed with an STD, or any number of other slanderous attacks,” the defense attorney said. “We uncovered approximately 38 people that she contacted in this campaign in 2017, months before any rape claim.”

“I’m on my way there, you can ignore me all you want, you will have to face me to do it … you cant quit me.”

 

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Here's the judge's actual ruling. The Convening Authority's JAGs should have complaints filed at their state bars for the due process violations. 

https://media.washtimes.com/media/misc/2019/08/26/1_-_FINAL_RULING_MTD_Discovery_22__Aug_19.pdf?fbclid=IwAR1IMAJtdKOsWaPSoVLRw24kHfOb5cwcZR7Xr-ddmmJbooYGff0p_07nmRQ

Quote

Even with knowledge of the government’s failures to respond to some of the most basic discovery, and at the risk of having the charges and specifications dismissed with prejudice, the GCMA has nevertheless elected to press forward with this prosecution while continuing to leave the provision of relevant and necessary discovery to the whims of interested parties. Consequently, this court is left to conclude that the United States of America is neither committed to ensuring the accused gets a fair trial nor taking the steps necessary to provide the accused with relevant discovery necessary to mount his defense.

Quote

Unlike the government, the court, in this case, will not shrink from its obligations to enforce the law and protect the rights of all persons who come before it. The actions and positions taken by the government in this case have convinced this court that anything other than a dismissal with prejudice will continue to prejudice the accused’s rights and reward the government for its conscious decision to withhold its authority and meet its obligations under the law.

 

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11 hours ago, Sua Sponte said:

Here's the judge's actual ruling. The Convening Authority's JAGs should have complaints filed at their state bars for the due process violations. 

https://media.washtimes.com/media/misc/2019/08/26/1_-_FINAL_RULING_MTD_Discovery_22__Aug_19.pdf?fbclid=IwAR1IMAJtdKOsWaPSoVLRw24kHfOb5cwcZR7Xr-ddmmJbooYGff0p_07nmRQ

 

That was some downright scary reading...  Too many gems in there to copy and past, here are a few that stuck out.

 

The accused has been under preferred charges (equivalent to an indictment) since February 2018.

 

The convening authority, when comparing competing options and electing to continue with the trial, weighed the potential concerns of the [alleged] victims over the constitutional rights of the accused.

 

Rather than ensuring the accused gets a fair trial, the government has elected instead to give greater weight to both the concerns of the alleged victims and the appearance that would result from issuing a warrant of attachment for the information that the alleged victims have admitted they saved than the individual rights of the accused.

 

In this case, the accused's defense now rests on the good will of his accusers.

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6 hours ago, SocialD said:

 

That was some downright scary reading...  Too many gems in there to copy and past, here are a few that stuck out.

Let the record show

W. SHANE COHEN, Colonel, USAF539 Military Judge

...is a badass.

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4 hours ago, nunya said:

He's gonna need all the badassery he can muster to professionally handle his new assignment: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/20/us/politics/w-shane-cohen-guantanamo.html

That’s cause the last two Air Force judges in the seat left to go be immigration judges. One of them, Judge Vance Spath, just got rebuked by the D.C. Court of Appeals for being in that job and secretly trying to become a immigration judge, throwing out all of his rulings in the al-Nashiri trial.

http://www.abajournal.com/web/article/dc-circuit-says-guantanamo-judge-created-intolerable-cloud-of-partiality-and-tosses-his-rulings

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I knew Whiting (at least interacted with him several dozen times) at one assignment in the last few years. The guy is a douche.

I'm pretty sure I took some kind of oath or something to do with the Constitution. Maybe he didn't take the same one?

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19 hours ago, skibum said:

I knew Whiting (at least interacted with him several dozen times) at one assignment in the last few years. The guy is a douche.

I'm pretty sure I took some kind of oath or something to do with the Constitution. Maybe he didn't take the same one?

Not a lawyer and didn't stay in a Holiday Inn Express last night.

 

I hope there is some legal remedy for this guy - civil suits to ruin those chicks who did this AND, more importantly, against the GCMCA.  I don't know how the latter can be punished; contact his senators and have them apply some "WTF?" pressure to SECAF/CSAF?

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1 minute ago, brickhistory said:

Not a lawyer and didn't stay in a Holiday Inn Express last night.

 

I hope there is some legal remedy for this guy - civil suits to ruin those chicks who did this AND, more importantly, against the GCMCA.  I don't know how the latter can be punished; contact his senators and have them apply some "WTF?" pressure to SECAF/CSAF?

You think senators will care about this? Your email/phone call is just another stick in the mud to them, pal.

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8 hours ago, brickhistory said:

Not a lawyer and didn't stay in a Holiday Inn Express last night.

 

I hope there is some legal remedy for this guy - civil suits to ruin those chicks who did this AND, more importantly, against the GCMCA.  I don't know how the latter can be punished; contact his senators and have them apply some "WTF?" pressure to SECAF/CSAF?

As someone who went through something like this and was entertaining a tort lawsuit against said accusers the legal advice I got was unless I had a proverbial smoking gun like a text saying they lied, I most likely wouldn’t win. 

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Probably not ‘what’s bad’, but just ran my first PT test in the AF. I’m 37, not skinny anymore, and I weigh 230, but I took great pleasure in beating the skinny 20-somethings, by at least a minute or more, in the run. 38 inch beer gut be dammed. 

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Probably not ‘what’s bad’, but just ran my first PT test in the AF. I’m 37, not skinny anymore, and I weigh 230, but I took great pleasure in beating the skinny 20-somethings, by at least a minute or more, in the run. 38 inch beer gut be dammed. 


Hell yeah cheers to that bro!


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  • 2 weeks later...

Has someone brought up awards in the last 210 pages? I was sitting through another murderboard today and was reminded of how much I hate our awards system. Hearing things like, “He’s the one with the most potential in my flight, so I make sure to set him up for an award early in the year by giving him projects,” drives me up a wall. If I were king for a day, awards would not be permitted on performance reports. Let the commander continue to recognize stellar performance from stellar Airmen, but if someone truly is outstanding they should have outstanding bullets and outstanding strats on their push line. Being able to put a soft “CGO of the quarter” strat on a performance report creates an environment where supervisors put the cart before the horse, i.e. “I want him to have a good career, so I better get him NCO of the year.” Let people do their jobs. If they’re awesome, give them an award in front of their peers but keep that off the OPR/EPR. Just put the 1206 bullets in the performance report.

And don’t get me started on qweep awards. Eff you Bob Hope and your 30 line 1206. Being an exec sucked enough without seeing TMT blow up with things like the “Ron Jeremy Hard Worker” award or whatever other garbage keeps getting added to the list every year. 

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16 minutes ago, zachbar said:

Has someone brought up awards in the last 210 pages? I was sitting through another murderboard today and was reminded of how much I hate our awards system. Hearing things like, “He’s the one with the most potential in my flight, so I make sure to set him up for an award early in the year by giving him projects,” drives me up a wall. If I were king for a day, awards would not be permitted on performance reports. Let the commander continue to recognize stellar performance from stellar Airmen, but if someone truly is outstanding they should have outstanding bullets and outstanding strats on their push line. Being able to put a soft “CGO of the quarter” strat on a performance report creates an environment where supervisors put the cart before the horse, i.e. “I want him to have a good career, so I better get him NCO of the year.” Let people do their jobs. If they’re awesome, give them an award in front of their peers but keep that off the OPR/EPR. Just put the 1206 bullets in the performance report.

And don’t get me started on qweep awards. Eff you Bob Hope and your 30 line 1206. Being an exec sucked enough without seeing TMT blow up with things like the “Ron Jeremy Hard Worker” award or whatever other garbage keeps getting added to the list every year. 

I particularly enjoy when supervisors contact my shop for 1206 bullets, as if it is my job to keep track of what their people have been doing. 

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16 hours ago, SurelySerious said:

I particularly enjoy when supervisors contact my shop for 1206 bullets, as if it is my job to keep track of what their people have been doing. 

Careful what you wish for. This complaint led to a former CC to agree with the shop chiefs and he decided to resolve flight commanders and make shop chiefs rate on everyone. 

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1 hour ago, FLEA said:

Careful what you wish for. This complaint led to a former CC to agree with the shop chiefs and he decided to resolve flight commanders and make shop chiefs rate on everyone. 

I’m not talking about someone remotely related or assigned to my shop, I’m talking someone in an entirely different section of the squadron I have no responsibility for whatsoever. 

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And don’t get me started on qweep awards. Eff you Bob Hope and your 30 line 1206. Being an exec sucked enough without seeing TMT blow up with things like the “Ron Jeremy Hard Worker” award or whatever other garbage keeps getting added to the list every year. 


Awards would be so much more fun if they had names like the Ron Jeremy award.

“The Jon Holmes - Professional Innovator Award”




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2 hours ago, SurelySerious said:

I’m not talking about someone remotely related or assigned to my shop, I’m talking someone in an entirely different section of the squadron I have no responsibility for whatsoever. 

Ahhh I got ya. Well it is getting ridiculous. If they go to officer static closeouts I think they need to get rid of annuals. Award the annual based of OPR at that point. Who had the strongest OPR that year. No sense in having two systems to say the same damn thing. 

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6 hours ago, Skitzo said:

 


Awards would be so much more fun if they had names like the Ron Jeremy award.

“The Jon Holmes - Professional Innovator Award”




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That or give dudes something they actually care about, not a service dress picture up in the hall way and a trophy of an eagle with a $0.25 plaque. Time off, CT, X/C, DBFM, gift card to the sizzler.

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