US Soldier's Lawyer Says Access Denied to Evidence - New York Times

AppId is over the quota
AppId is over the quota
“We were expecting a lot more cooperation,” Sergeant Bales’s lead lawyer, John Henry Browne, said during a news conference in Seattle on Friday.

The complaints are expected to be just the first of many disputes over evidence in what experts predict will be an extremely complicated case for both defense and prosecution, given the location of the crime scene in a war zone and the possible hostility of witnesses to lawyers from both sides.

Mr. Browne said that after members of his team were prevented from interviewing survivors of the attacks at a hospital, prosecutors interviewed those witnesses the following day. The witnesses were then released, leaving no contact information. “They could just disappear into the countryside,” Mr. Browne said.

He also said that the team was not given access to health records for the wounded civilians or surveillance video that purportedly shows Sergeant Bales returning to his combat outpost after the killings.

“The prosecution will provide the defense with evidence in accordance with the rules for courts-martial and the military rules of evidence,” said Maj. Chris Ophardt, an Army spokesman at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, south of Tacoma, Wash., where Sergeant Bales was stationed. “Within these guidelines the prosecution is and has been communicating with the defense.”

Eugene R. Fidell, who teaches military justice at Yale Law School, said there was no reason that the government should be expected to share files from an open investigation this early in the case. He added that prosecutors would have to make their major witnesses available to the defense, if they wanted that testimony in the record.

Sergeant Bales, who is being held at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., will be examined by mental health experts to determine whether he is mentally fit for trial, a process that could take months. Mr. Browne, who says that Sergeant Bales cannot remember many events from the night of the killings, will also seek to determine whether the sergeant had a concussive head injury or post-traumatic stress disorder.

Military officials say Sergeant Bales, 38, walked out of his combat outpost in Kandahar Province to two nearby villages early on the morning of March 11 and fatally shot a number of people, at least nine of whom were children. He has been charged with 17 counts of premeditated murder, a capital crime.

The military has yet to suggest a motive for the killings, though officials have said that Sergeant Bales may have been drinking that night and may have been struggling with the stresses of multiple deployments; he was on his fourth deployment in 10 years.

Mr. Browne has said Sergeant Bales was happily married and that there was no evidence he drank alcohol the night of the shootings. He has also said that Sergeant Bales knew a soldier who was badly wounded days before the killings, had a mild traumatic brain injury and may also have P.T.S.D. — though the sergeant’s wife has said she never noticed any symptoms.

Mr. Browne later said that Sergeant Bales had probably tried to hide his problems from her.

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