The recent case of our client, Captain Roger Hill, came up in an Op Ed piece in the Washington Times this morning.  Three great Americans co-authored the piece, which takes aim at the current state of Army leadership on the battlefield.  The story of CPT Hill’s dilemma is a poignant one.  Army commanders, swayed by misguided Army JAG lawyers’ terrible advice, lost a great officer and leader when they chose to jettison CPT Hill from their ranks.  Rather than give him the support he needed when his company was facing an insider threat, the Army chose to discipline CPT Hill and his men for seeking information from Taliban spies who were employed on his base to support his company.  He was charged with a war crime.  Violating the Geneva Convention by inflicting psychological pain on detainees (read: fear).  But when CPT Hill called up the chain of command for assistance, he was ignored; left to make his own difficult decisions about preventing the release of the Taliban spies who would otherwise return to the battlefield and kill his soldiers.  Inexplicably, the Army refused to release the report of the Article 32 investigation hearing, in which CPT Hill was represented by Neal Puckett, our senior partner.  CPT Hill now awaits a decison by the Secretary of the Army as to his characterization of separation from the service.  Our hope is that he will receive an honorable discharge.

Facebook and MySpace are a lot of fun.  Just ask anyone.  It’s great to get on your profile and talk about what you are doing and what you think about.   You might even get a little carried away, bragging to your friends about what you did last Saturday night and with whom.  Yet increasingly, prosecutors are requesting and getting FaceBook and MySpace entries along with your phone records when you get in trouble in the military.  Your own words could come back to you and help convict you of a crime under the Military’s Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ).  Here are some helpful things to consider when chatting to your “Friends” about what you’ve been up to:

1.    When you start typing on FaceBook, ask yourself if you wouldn’t mind if your Mom read it.
2.    Be careful about code words and inferences.  It’s just like safeguarding classified material at work.  All the security training we get in the military reminds us to not use code words.  If you aren’t on a classified computer or phone line – don’t say it.  Same goes with FaceBook – it’s open comms to your Friends, and to their friends.  Are you sure you want everyone to know?
3.    Don’t admit to wrong-doing, defined as either illegal acts under the UCMJ or immoral acts the press will grab onto and convict you in public court.  Take for example Michael Phelps, the Olympic champion.  One picture at a party, taken on cell phone and placed on YouTube or FaceBook has incriminated him, caused a media nightmare and he may end up being charged.

Don’t make your Defense Attorney’s job harder by handing the prosecution a confession or proof of intent.  Defense lawyers can argue an expectation of privacy under the Fourth Amendment prohibition on unreasonable searches and seizures on FaceBook to keep the prosecution from using it against you in court.  But chances of that succeeding are slim as it is widely accepted that opening up your FaceBook to your Friends and their Friends means you are putting that information out into the public domain.

Clarice Feldman, writing for the Pajamas Media blog, is looking into the connections Congressman Murtha has with lobbying firms currently under federal criminal investigation.  In “Is the Law Finally Closing in on John Murtha?” she correctly notes that he made outrageous comments about our client, SSgt Wuterich’s unit before an investigation had been completed.  The lawsuit against Congressman Murtha for defamation of SSgt Wuterich’s character is still pending.

The story of Captain Roger Hill is compelling.  Army Hanging Hero Out to Dry.  Often when commanders on the local level figure out a way to win the war, their superiors take them to task for coloring outside the lines.  the Taliban does not follow rules.  When they capture or kill our soldiers and Marines, they are known to butcher them and distribute their body parts as souvenirs.

CPT Hill, an Army company commander, who had suffered an extremely high casualty rate in his unit, discovered that trusted Afghans working on his forward operating base were traitors who communicated troop movement information to the Taliban.  He detained them and notified higher headquarters for assistance in moving them to a place where they could be interrogated and perhaps tried for their crimes. The battalion staff stalled him for 4 days until the 96-hour time limit for holding detainees expired.  The information about the betrayal was obtained through sensitive sources and methods which could not be revealed to Afghan forces who might take custody of the detainees, so CPT Hill and his First Sergeant knew they needed to extract confessions from them.  Confessions would not  be classified and could justify their continued detention.  Otherwise they would have to be released, and therefore continue to work against our soldiers.  In order to assist his interrogators, he went outside with some less important detainees and fired his weapon into the ground three times, to simulate their execution.  That information was used by his interrogators to extract useful information from the high threat detainees.  A War’s Impossible Mission

The Army, rather than decorating CPT Hill for his courage and initiative, brought war crimes charges against him.  The Law Firm of Puckett and Faraj, PC, defended CPT Hill during a three-day hearing at Forward Operating Base Salerno in Afghanistan.  The investigating officer, a courageous Army Lieutenant Colonel in the Military Police Corps, wrote a report, which was promptly sealed and never released to his attorneys.  After originally insisting that CPT Hill should face a general court-martial on war crimes charges and face the prospect of a dismissal from the Army (a dishonorable discharge) and years of confinement, the legal advisor to the commanding general asked that we quickly offer to accept administrative discipline by ART 15 non-judicial punishment and resign his commission and avoid a federal felony conviction.  CPT Hill agreed and now is back home awaiting word on his discharge from the Secretary of the Army.

Puckett & Faraj PC

Neal Puckett and Haytham Faraj are criminal defense and general litigation attorneys and partners in the The Law Firm of Puckett and Faraj, PC.  They have decades of trial experience defending those accused of criminal charges in federal and military courts-martial. Mr. Puckett and Mr. Faraj also represent clients in a variety of administrative hearings including Boards of Inquiry, Administrative Separation hearings, immigration removal hearings, Boards of Corrections of Military and Naval Records, Military Discharge Review Boards and National Security Clearance hearings, among others. Neal Puckett and Haytham Faraj have also represented those who have been harmed or injured by the negligence, recklessness, or deliberate acts or failures of others.