Camp Pendleton, Calif. – Prosecutors and defense attorneys Monday appealed to a hearing officer’s experience as an infantry battalion commander in their final arguments of the preliminary hearing for Lt. Col. Jeffrey Chessani, charged with failing to investigate the killing of 24 civilians in Hadithah, Iraq, by Marines under his command.
Lt. Col. Sean Sullivan, the lead prosecutor, told the hearing officer, Col. Christopher Conlin, that sending Chessani to court-martial will show that Chessani is being held to the same high standards that “99.99 percent of Marine officers and enlisted” obey.
“You’re an experienced battalion commander,” Sullivan said. “You were in theater. You know.”
But defense attorney Robert Muise said that, as a former commander, Conlin knows that sending Chessani to court-martial would hurt the morale of other commanders. He asked that Conlin recommend that the charges be dismissed and Chessani, who grew up in Rangely, be allowed to retire.
“The reality is, you know, sir, you served in Iraq, that civilian deaths are a regrettable consequence of this war,” Muise said.
Conlin will make his recommendation to Lt. Gen. James N. Mattis, commander of Marine Forces Central Command. If there is a court-martial, Mattis will pick the jury pool and, if there is a conviction, Mattis will decide whether the conviction will stand.
In the military legal system, many major decisions are left to non-lawyers.
Mattis emphasized this by picking Conlin instead of an attorney as the hearing officer for Chessani, who stands accused of dereliction of duty and violating a direct order for not launching a formal investigation into the Nov. 19, 2005, killings. Chessani at the time commanded the 3rd battalion, 1st regiment.
He is the highest-ranking member of the armed service to be charged with misdeeds in the Iraq war.
