Gunmen attack Fort Hood, Texas

[davidbfpo]

The full WaPo title was 'Senate probe faults Army, FBI for missing warning signs before Fort Hood attack':http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...020301899.html

For an outsider I noted these points:

..the FBI had compelling evidence of extremism that should have led to Hasan's military discharge and made him the subject of a counterterrorism investigation....higher-ups wrote his officer evaluation reports in a way that "sanitized his obsession with violent Islamist extremism into praiseworthy research on counterterrorism."

And for the lawyers:

Hasan's attorney, reacted to the latest report with outrage, saying the FBI and the Pentagon continue supplying e-mails and personnel files for such investigations but have withheld them from Hasan's defense in the course of the legal discovery process.

The report itself:http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv...l?hpid=topnews

Which one day I may read in full.

[jmm99]

Solely in answer to your question regarding discovery by defendants under the UCMJ.

1. The UCMJ has liberal (pro-defendant) discovery provisions which are comparable to those under the Federal or Michigan Criminal Rules.

2. That being said, the defense lawyer has to ask in the correct way under the applicable law.

A good outline of UCMJ discovery and production starts at p.J-1 (p.255 pdf) of the 2010 Crim-Law-Deskbook_V-1.pdf (download link):

DISCOVERY AND PRODUCTION
TABLE OF CONTENTS

I. REFERENCES - 1

II. INTRODUCTION - 1

III. GENERAL - 2

IV. GOVERNMENT DISCOVERY RESPONSIBILITIES AND REQUESTS - 3

V. DEFENSE DISCOVERY RESPONSIBILITIES AND REQUESTS - 15

VI. REGULATION OF DISCOVERY - 18

VII. PRODUCTION - 23

VIII. CONCLUSION AND PRACTICE TIPS - 32

IX. APPENDIX - 34

The Appendix outlines the several dozen rules applicable.

All that being true, the USG is an octapus, whose multiple hands do not necessarily communicate. The largest discovery and production problems in the DC District and Circuit Gitmo cases (whose Federal judges have more practical clout than military judges with USG agencies) came about because consolidated databases did not exist for each detainee. The first octapus hand did not know what the eighth hand held.

So, the defense attorney may just be blowing smoke; or, he screwed up (asked the wrong question); or, the FBI and DoD are not communicating well. An intentional failure to disclose (in violation of the UCMJ) is unlikely; though, of course, "possible".

Regards

Mike

[gute]

Has a report come out on the shooting itself and the effectiveness of the 5.7x28 round?

[AdamG]

Has a report come out on the shooting itself and the effectiveness of the 5.7x28 round?

No, but there's one on the ineffectiveness of some officers.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Nine Army officers are being reprimanded for leadership failures in connection with the shooting rampage at Fort Hood, Texas, and their failure to detect and report problems with the accused shooter, Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, as he moved along in his medical career.

Saying that although no single event directly led to the tragedy, Army Secretary John McHugh found that certain officers failed to meet expected standards, an Army statement said Thursday. The officers - all lieutenant or above - will receive punishments ranging from an oral reprimand to the far more serious written letter of censure that is considered a career-ender.

Hasan is charged with 13 counts of premeditated murder and 32 counts of attempted premeditated murder in the November 2009 shooting spree on the Texas military post.

A Pentagon review last year found that Hasan's supervisors at Walter Reed Army Medical Center where he worked expressed serious concerns about his questionable behavior and poor judgment but failed to heed their own warnings. It said the Army psychiatrist's supervisors continued to give him positive performance evaluations that kept him moving up through the ranks despite worries about his strident views on Islam and worries about his competence.

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories...TAM&SECTION=US